Git commit from inside script fails

Question

I wrote the following bash function which should create a commit with my username hardcoded. Yes I know about git config, this is just a minimal example to demonstrate the problem I'm having.

# lib.sh
function lock-commit() {
    local commit_author="Varun Madiath <[email protected]>"
    git commit --author="${commit_author}" "$@"
}

However when I run this, it gives me the error below. Running the command on the command line directly does not result in the error.

[vmadiath@magma ac-test]$ source lib.sh
[vmadiath@magma ac-test]$ lock-commit -m "test"

*** Please tell me who you are.

Run

  git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
  git config --global user.name "Your Name"

to set your account's default identity.
Omit --global to set the identity only in this repository.

fatal: empty ident name (for <[email protected]>) not allowed

Given that I'm explicitly passing the author, I shouldn't need to set the user.email and user.name config settings.

Any idea why this is happening, and how I can correct this behaviour.

It works for me. Try cutting your script down to just calling lock-function or showing your whole script or at least how you're calling lock-function. — Schwern
– Schwern, Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 20:28
Also, what version of Git are you using? I believe --author hasn't always been there. — Schwern
– Schwern, Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 20:30
I'm using git version 2.6.2. I've updated the example without my wrapper scrpit so that I'm calling the function directly. — Varun Madiath
– Varun Madiath, Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 20:40
Nope, still can't replicate it with 2.6.2. Are you sure git is git and not some wrapper? Also check there's no git-commit in your PATH. Finally, maybe post your ~/.gitconfig and .git/config. — Schwern
– Schwern, Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 21:01

Matthew Strawbridge · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-04 21:12:42Z

1

Git records two details for each commit: the author (which is what you're overriding) and the committer (which is what it's looking for in your settings).

This allows one user to commit changes on behalf of another, while recording details of both users in the repository.

answered Nov 4, 2015 at 21:12

Matthew Strawbridge

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1 Comment

Varun Madiath Over a year ago

Thanks, this had me figure it out. Turns out lib.sh also overrode the HOME variable, which was causing git to not find my settings.

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