Re: [PATCH v2] mailmap: consistently normalize brian m. carlson's name

From: "brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
To: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Cc: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>, git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] mailmap: consistently normalize brian m. carlson's name
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 01:15:47 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20180925011547.GG432229@genre.crustytoothpaste.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20180924173902.GB138072@aiede.svl.corp.google.com>

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On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 10:39:02AM -0700, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> brian m. carlson wrote:
> 
> > I think this commit message makes sense.  I apparently still fail to
> > understand how the .mailmap format works, so I can't tell you if the
> > patch is correct.
> 
> Thanks for looking it over.  What would it take to make the patch make
> sense, too? ;-)

I certainly didn't mean to imply a failing on your part for explaining
the change adequately.  I've just always found the format confusing and
I know others do, too.

> Most mailmap entries are of the form
> 
> 	Some Name <someemail@example.com>
> 
> which means "Wherever you see the email address someemail@example.com,
> canonicalize the author's name to Some Name".  We can use that:
> 
> 	brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
> 
> When we see sandals@crustytoothpaste.ath.cx, we also want to
> canonicalize the email address.  For that, we can do
> 
> 	brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> <sandals@crustytoothpaste.ath.cx>
> 
> There's only one person who has used these email addresses, so we
> don't have to do matching by name.  If we wanted to tighten the name
> normalization to match by name, I think we'd do something like
> 
> 	brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> Brian M. Carlson
> 
> but I can't get that to seem to have any effect when I test with the
> "git check-mailmap" command --- for example, "git check-mailmap 'Dana
> How <random.email@example.com>'" does not map and "git check-mailmap
> 'Random Name <danahow@gmail.com>'" maps to 'Dana L. How
> <danahow@gmail.com>'.
> 
> The even tighter matching used in v1
> 
> 	brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> Brian M. Carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
> 
> does work, but it's unnecessary complexity.  We don't need it.

This has been a really helpful explanation.  Thanks.

Maybe I'll have some time over the next week or so to send a patch to
the documentation to make it more understandable to past me.

> How about this?
> 
> Changes since v1:
> - loosened the matching to only look at email and ignore name
> - no other changes
> 
>  .mailmap | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/.mailmap b/.mailmap
> index f165222a78..bef3352b0d 100644
> --- a/.mailmap
> +++ b/.mailmap
> @@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Ben Walton <bdwalton@gmail.com> <bwalton@artsci.utoronto.ca>
>  Benoit Sigoure <tsunanet@gmail.com> <tsuna@lrde.epita.fr>
>  Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> <bernt@alumni.uwaterloo.ca>
>  Brandon Casey <drafnel@gmail.com> <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil>
> -brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> Brian M. Carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.ath.cx>
> +brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
>  brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> <sandals@crustytoothpaste.ath.cx>
>  Bryan Larsen <bryan@larsen.st> <bryan.larsen@gmail.com>
>  Bryan Larsen <bryan@larsen.st> <bryanlarsen@yahoo.com>

Having read your explanation, this looks good.  Thanks for fixing this.
-- 
brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204

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