Provided by: git-man_2.43.0-1ubuntu7.1_all 
NAME
git-interpret-trailers - Add or parse structured information in commit messages
SYNOPSIS
git interpret-trailers [--in-place] [--trim-empty]
[(--trailer (<key>|<keyAlias>)[(=|:)<value>])...]
[--parse] [<file>...]
DESCRIPTION
Add or parse trailer lines that look similar to RFC 822 e-mail headers, at the end of the
otherwise free-form part of a commit message. For example, in the following commit message
subject
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Signed-off-by: Alice <alice@example.com>
Signed-off-by: Bob <bob@example.com>
the last two lines starting with "Signed-off-by" are trailers.
This command reads commit messages from either the <file> arguments or the standard input
if no <file> is specified. If --parse is specified, the output consists of the parsed
trailers coming from the input, without influencing them with any command line options or
configuration variables.
Otherwise, this command applies trailer.* configuration variables (which could potentially
add new trailers, as well as reposition them), as well as any command line arguments that
can override configuration variables (such as --trailer=... which could also add new
trailers), to each input file. The result is emitted on the standard output.
This command can also operate on the output of git-format-patch(1), which is more
elaborate than a plain commit message. Namely, such output includes a commit message (as
above), a "---" divider line, and a patch part. For these inputs, the divider and patch
parts are not modified by this command and are emitted as is on the output, unless
--no-divider is specified.
Some configuration variables control the way the --trailer arguments are applied to each
input and the way any existing trailer in the input is changed. They also make it possible
to automatically add some trailers.
By default, a <key>=<value> or <key>:<value> argument given using --trailer will be
appended after the existing trailers only if the last trailer has a different (<key>,
<value>) pair (or if there is no existing trailer). The <key> and <value> parts will be
trimmed to remove starting and trailing whitespace, and the resulting trimmed <key> and
<value> will appear in the output like this:
key: value
This means that the trimmed <key> and <value> will be separated by ': ' (one colon
followed by one space).
For convenience, a <keyAlias> can be configured to make using --trailer shorter to type on
the command line. This can be configured using the trailer.<keyAlias>.key configuration
variable. The <keyAlias> must be a prefix of the full <key> string, although case
sensitivity does not matter. For example, if you have
trailer.sign.key "Signed-off-by: "
in your configuration, you only need to specify --trailer="sign: foo" on the command line
instead of --trailer="Signed-off-by: foo".
By default the new trailer will appear at the end of all the existing trailers. If there
is no existing trailer, the new trailer will appear at the end of the input. A blank line
will be added before the new trailer if there isn’t one already.
Existing trailers are extracted from the input by looking for a group of one or more lines
that (i) is all trailers, or (ii) contains at least one Git-generated or user-configured
trailer and consists of at least 25% trailers. The group must be preceded by one or more
empty (or whitespace-only) lines. The group must either be at the end of the input or be
the last non-whitespace lines before a line that starts with --- (followed by a space or
the end of the line).
When reading trailers, there can be no whitespace before or inside the <key>, but any
number of regular space and tab characters are allowed between the <key> and the
separator. There can be whitespaces before, inside or after the <value>. The <value> may
be split over multiple lines with each subsequent line starting with at least one
whitespace, like the "folding" in RFC 822. Example:
key: This is a very long value, with spaces and
newlines in it.
Note that trailers do not follow (nor are they intended to follow) many of the rules for
RFC 822 headers. For example they do not follow the encoding rule.
OPTIONS
--in-place
Edit the files in place.
--trim-empty
If the <value> part of any trailer contains only whitespace, the whole trailer will be
removed from the output. This applies to existing trailers as well as new trailers.
--trailer <key>[(=|:)<value>]
Specify a (<key>, <value>) pair that should be applied as a trailer to the inputs. See
the description of this command.
--where <placement>, --no-where
Specify where all new trailers will be added. A setting provided with --where
overrides the trailer.where and any applicable trailer.<keyAlias>.where configuration
variables and applies to all --trailer options until the next occurrence of --where or
--no-where. Upon encountering --no-where, clear the effect of any previous use of
--where, such that the relevant configuration variables are no longer overridden.
Possible placements are after, before, end or start.
--if-exists <action>, --no-if-exists
Specify what action will be performed when there is already at least one trailer with
the same <key> in the input. A setting provided with --if-exists overrides the
trailer.ifExists and any applicable trailer.<keyAlias>.ifExists configuration
variables and applies to all --trailer options until the next occurrence of
--if-exists or --no-if-exists. Upon encountering '--no-if-exists, clear the effect of
any previous use of '--if-exists, such that the relevant configuration variables are
no longer overridden. Possible actions are addIfDifferent, addIfDifferentNeighbor,
add, replace and doNothing.
--if-missing <action>, --no-if-missing
Specify what action will be performed when there is no other trailer with the same
<key> in the input. A setting provided with --if-missing overrides the
trailer.ifMissing and any applicable trailer.<keyAlias>.ifMissing configuration
variables and applies to all --trailer options until the next occurrence of
--if-missing or --no-if-missing. Upon encountering '--no-if-missing, clear the effect
of any previous use of '--if-missing, such that the relevant configuration variables
are no longer overridden. Possible actions are doNothing or add.
--only-trailers
Output only the trailers, not any other parts of the input.
--only-input
Output only trailers that exist in the input; do not add any from the command-line or
by applying trailer.* configuration variables.
--unfold
If a trailer has a value that runs over multiple lines (aka "folded"), reformat the
value into a single line.
--parse
A convenience alias for --only-trailers --only-input --unfold. This makes it easier to
only see the trailers coming from the input without influencing them with any command
line options or configuration variables, while also making the output machine-friendly
with --unfold.
--no-divider
Do not treat --- as the end of the commit message. Use this when you know your input
contains just the commit message itself (and not an email or the output of git
format-patch).
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
trailer.separators
This option tells which characters are recognized as trailer separators. By default
only : is recognized as a trailer separator, except that = is always accepted on the
command line for compatibility with other git commands.
The first character given by this option will be the default character used when
another separator is not specified in the config for this trailer.
For example, if the value for this option is "%=$", then only lines using the format
<key><sep><value> with <sep> containing %, = or $ and then spaces will be considered
trailers. And % will be the default separator used, so by default trailers will appear
like: <key>% <value> (one percent sign and one space will appear between the key and
the value).
trailer.where
This option tells where a new trailer will be added.
This can be end, which is the default, start, after or before.
If it is end, then each new trailer will appear at the end of the existing trailers.
If it is start, then each new trailer will appear at the start, instead of the end, of
the existing trailers.
If it is after, then each new trailer will appear just after the last trailer with the
same <key>.
If it is before, then each new trailer will appear just before the first trailer with
the same <key>.
trailer.ifexists
This option makes it possible to choose what action will be performed when there is
already at least one trailer with the same <key> in the input.
The valid values for this option are: addIfDifferentNeighbor (this is the default),
addIfDifferent, add, replace or doNothing.
With addIfDifferentNeighbor, a new trailer will be added only if no trailer with the
same (<key>, <value>) pair is above or below the line where the new trailer will be
added.
With addIfDifferent, a new trailer will be added only if no trailer with the same
(<key>, <value>) pair is already in the input.
With add, a new trailer will be added, even if some trailers with the same (<key>,
<value>) pair are already in the input.
With replace, an existing trailer with the same <key> will be deleted and the new
trailer will be added. The deleted trailer will be the closest one (with the same
<key>) to the place where the new one will be added.
With doNothing, nothing will be done; that is no new trailer will be added if there is
already one with the same <key> in the input.
trailer.ifmissing
This option makes it possible to choose what action will be performed when there is
not yet any trailer with the same <key> in the input.
The valid values for this option are: add (this is the default) and doNothing.
With add, a new trailer will be added.
With doNothing, nothing will be done.
trailer.<keyAlias>.key
Defines a <keyAlias> for the <key>. The <keyAlias> must be a prefix (case does not
matter) of the <key>. For example, in git config trailer.ack.key "Acked-by" the
"Acked-by" is the <key> and the "ack" is the <keyAlias>. This configuration allows the
shorter --trailer "ack:..." invocation on the command line using the "ack" <keyAlias>
instead of the longer --trailer "Acked-by:...".
At the end of the <key>, a separator can appear and then some space characters. By
default the only valid separator is :, but this can be changed using the
trailer.separators config variable.
If there is a separator in the key, then it overrides the default separator when
adding the trailer.
trailer.<keyAlias>.where
This option takes the same values as the trailer.where configuration variable and it
overrides what is specified by that option for trailers with the specified <keyAlias>.
trailer.<keyAlias>.ifexists
This option takes the same values as the trailer.ifexists configuration variable and
it overrides what is specified by that option for trailers with the specified
<keyAlias>.
trailer.<keyAlias>.ifmissing
This option takes the same values as the trailer.ifmissing configuration variable and
it overrides what is specified by that option for trailers with the specified
<keyAlias>.
trailer.<keyAlias>.command
Deprecated in favor of trailer.<keyAlias>.cmd. This option behaves in the same way as
trailer.<keyAlias>.cmd, except that it doesn’t pass anything as argument to the
specified command. Instead the first occurrence of substring $ARG is replaced by the
<value> that would be passed as argument.
Note that $ARG in the user’s command is only replaced once and that the original way
of replacing $ARG is not safe.
When both trailer.<keyAlias>.cmd and trailer.<keyAlias>.command are given for the same
<keyAlias>, trailer.<keyAlias>.cmd is used and trailer.<keyAlias>.command is ignored.
trailer.<keyAlias>.cmd
This option can be used to specify a shell command that will be called once to
automatically add a trailer with the specified <keyAlias>, and then called each time a
--trailer <keyAlias>=<value> argument is specified to modify the <value> of the
trailer that this option would produce.
When the specified command is first called to add a trailer with the specified
<keyAlias>, the behavior is as if a special --trailer <keyAlias>=<value> argument was
added at the beginning of the "git interpret-trailers" command, where <value> is taken
to be the standard output of the command with any leading and trailing whitespace
trimmed off.
If some --trailer <keyAlias>=<value> arguments are also passed on the command line,
the command is called again once for each of these arguments with the same <keyAlias>.
And the <value> part of these arguments, if any, will be passed to the command as its
first argument. This way the command can produce a <value> computed from the <value>
passed in the --trailer <keyAlias>=<value> argument.
EXAMPLES
• Configure a sign trailer with a Signed-off-by key, and then add two of these trailers
to a commit message file:
$ git config trailer.sign.key "Signed-off-by"
$ cat msg.txt
subject
body text
$ git interpret-trailers --trailer 'sign: Alice <alice@example.com>' --trailer 'sign: Bob <bob@example.com>' <msg.txt
subject
body text
Signed-off-by: Alice <alice@example.com>
Signed-off-by: Bob <bob@example.com>
• Use the --in-place option to edit a commit message file in place:
$ cat msg.txt
subject
body text
Signed-off-by: Bob <bob@example.com>
$ git interpret-trailers --trailer 'Acked-by: Alice <alice@example.com>' --in-place msg.txt
$ cat msg.txt
subject
body text
Signed-off-by: Bob <bob@example.com>
Acked-by: Alice <alice@example.com>
• Extract the last commit as a patch, and add a Cc and a Reviewed-by trailer to it:
$ git format-patch -1
0001-foo.patch
$ git interpret-trailers --trailer 'Cc: Alice <alice@example.com>' --trailer 'Reviewed-by: Bob <bob@example.com>' 0001-foo.patch >0001-bar.patch
• Configure a sign trailer with a command to automatically add a 'Signed-off-by: ' with
the author information only if there is no 'Signed-off-by: ' already, and show how it
works:
$ cat msg1.txt
subject
body text
$ git config trailer.sign.key "Signed-off-by: "
$ git config trailer.sign.ifmissing add
$ git config trailer.sign.ifexists doNothing
$ git config trailer.sign.cmd 'echo "$(git config user.name) <$(git config user.email)>"'
$ git interpret-trailers --trailer sign <msg1.txt
subject
body text
Signed-off-by: Bob <bob@example.com>
$ cat msg2.txt
subject
body text
Signed-off-by: Alice <alice@example.com>
$ git interpret-trailers --trailer sign <msg2.txt
subject
body text
Signed-off-by: Alice <alice@example.com>
• Configure a fix trailer with a key that contains a # and no space after this
character, and show how it works:
$ git config trailer.separators ":#"
$ git config trailer.fix.key "Fix #"
$ echo "subject" | git interpret-trailers --trailer fix=42
subject
Fix #42
• Configure a help trailer with a cmd use a script glog-find-author which search
specified author identity from git log in git repository and show how it works:
$ cat ~/bin/glog-find-author
#!/bin/sh
test -n "$1" && git log --author="$1" --pretty="%an <%ae>" -1 || true
$ cat msg.txt
subject
body text
$ git config trailer.help.key "Helped-by: "
$ git config trailer.help.ifExists "addIfDifferentNeighbor"
$ git config trailer.help.cmd "~/bin/glog-find-author"
$ git interpret-trailers --trailer="help:Junio" --trailer="help:Couder" <msg.txt
subject
body text
Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Helped-by: Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com>
• Configure a ref trailer with a cmd use a script glog-grep to grep last relevant commit
from git log in the git repository and show how it works:
$ cat ~/bin/glog-grep
#!/bin/sh
test -n "$1" && git log --grep "$1" --pretty=reference -1 || true
$ cat msg.txt
subject
body text
$ git config trailer.ref.key "Reference-to: "
$ git config trailer.ref.ifExists "replace"
$ git config trailer.ref.cmd "~/bin/glog-grep"
$ git interpret-trailers --trailer="ref:Add copyright notices." <msg.txt
subject
body text
Reference-to: 8bc9a0c769 (Add copyright notices., 2005-04-07)
• Configure a see trailer with a command to show the subject of a commit that is
related, and show how it works:
$ cat msg.txt
subject
body text
see: HEAD~2
$ cat ~/bin/glog-ref
#!/bin/sh
git log -1 --oneline --format="%h (%s)" --abbrev-commit --abbrev=14
$ git config trailer.see.key "See-also: "
$ git config trailer.see.ifExists "replace"
$ git config trailer.see.ifMissing "doNothing"
$ git config trailer.see.cmd "glog-ref"
$ git interpret-trailers --trailer=see <msg.txt
subject
body text
See-also: fe3187489d69c4 (subject of related commit)
• Configure a commit template with some trailers with empty values (using sed to show
and keep the trailing spaces at the end of the trailers), then configure a commit-msg
hook that uses git interpret-trailers to remove trailers with empty values and to add
a git-version trailer:
$ cat temp.txt
***subject***
***message***
Fixes: Z
Cc: Z
Reviewed-by: Z
Signed-off-by: Z
$ sed -e 's/ Z$/ /' temp.txt > commit_template.txt
$ git config commit.template commit_template.txt
$ cat .git/hooks/commit-msg
#!/bin/sh
git interpret-trailers --trim-empty --trailer "git-version: \$(git describe)" "\$1" > "\$1.new"
mv "\$1.new" "\$1"
$ chmod +x .git/hooks/commit-msg
SEE ALSO
git-commit(1), git-format-patch(1), git-config(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite