Re: Does Git really need a commit message to go with a commit?

["Santi Béjar" <santi@agolina.net>]

On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 1:15 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
<avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 22:26, Santi Béjar <santi@agolina.net> wrote:
>> On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 12:06 AM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
>> <avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> git-commit(1) doesn't allow you to make a commit without a commit
>>> message. This is annoying and doesn't properly preserve history in
>>> applications like snerp-vortex which replay a SVN dump into Git. You
>>> have to add `$msg = "Git made me do it" unless length $msg' somewhere.
>>>
>>> Is there really no way to add a commit with no message with the git
>>> tools? Will anything break if I manually construct a commit with no
>>> message? Are commit messages inherently part of the format or does
>>> git-commit(1) just think it knows better than me?
>>
>> Normally it does not make sense an empty commit message, so it is
>> forbidden by default. But there is a flag (documented in the man page)
>> since v1.5.4 (v1.5.3.7-994-g36863af git-commit --allow-empty,
>> 2007-12-03) to allow it.
>
> Actually --allow-empty allows you to commit an empty /tree/. It
> doesn't do anything for the commit message itself.

Arg! You are right, sorry for the noise. I should not write emails
during the night...

I then suppose your only option is to use plumbing commands (see
git(1)), in this case git-commit-tree. In general if you write scripts
around git you should use only plumbing commands as they don't change
the behavior.

HTH,
Santi