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authorAdeodato Simó <dato@net.com.org.es>2008-12-27 19:23:30 +0100
committerJunio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>2008-12-27 13:52:19 -0800
commit3a882d9696ba2ba46adc107b92b4721e59bb60b4 (patch)
tree71381568a64c16cd0a5c6d733887e149b31d0d17 /Documentation/git-shortlog.txt
parent8104ebfe8276657ee803cca7eb8665a78cf3ef83 (diff)
downloadgit-3a882d9696ba2ba46adc107b92b4721e59bb60b4.tar.gz
git-shortlog.txt: improve documentation about .mailmap files
The description on .mailmap made it seem like they are only useful for commits with a wrong address for an author, but they are about fixing the real name. Explain this better in the text, and replace the existing example with a new one that hopefully makes things clearer. Signed-off-by: Adeodato Simó <dato@net.com.org.es> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/git-shortlog.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/git-shortlog.txt40
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-shortlog.txt b/Documentation/git-shortlog.txt
index 7ccf31ccc4..8f7c0e226d 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-shortlog.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-shortlog.txt
@@ -48,15 +48,41 @@ OPTIONS
FILES
-----
-If the file `.mailmap` exists, it will be used for mapping author
-email addresses to a real author name. One mapping per line, first
-the author name followed by the email address enclosed by
-'<' and '>'. Use hash '#' for comments. Example:
+If a file `.mailmap` exists at the toplevel of the repository,
+it is used to map an author email address to a canonical real name. This
+can be used to coalesce together commits by the same person where their
+name was spelled differently (whether with the same email address or
+not).
+
+Each line in the file consists, in this order, of the canonical real name
+of an author, whitespace, and an email address (enclosed by '<' and '>')
+to map to the name. Use hash '#' for comments, either on their own line,
+or after the email address.
+
+A canonical name may appear in more than one line, associated with
+different email addresses, but it doesn't make sense for a given address
+to appear more than once (if that happens, a later line overrides the
+earlier ones).
+
+So, for example, if your history contains commits by two authors, Jane
+and Joe, whose names appear in the repository under several forms:
+
+------------
+Joe Developer <joe@example.com>
+Joe R. Developer <joe@example.com>
+Jane Doe <jane@example.com>
+Jane Doe <jane@laptop.(none)>
+Jane D. <jane@desktop.(none)>
+------------
+
+Then, supposing Joe wants his middle name initial used, and Jane prefers
+her family name fully spelled out, a proper `.mailmap` file would look like:
------------
-# Keep alphabetized
-Adam Morrow <adam@localhost.localdomain>
-Eve Jones <eve@laptop.(none)>
+# Note how we don't need an entry for <jane@laptop.(none)>, because the
+# real name of that author is correct already, and coalesced directly.
+Jane Doe <jane@desktop.(none)>
+Joe R. Developer <joe@random.com>
------------
Author