Question

I have a git repository imported from subversion where users have names like H1234567. When I run git log or git blame I’d prefer to see dave than H1234567.

Can a specific author’s name be overridden in config so that all git tools will display the custom name? Alternatively perhaps there is a way to achieve this with gettext? Ideas welcome.

Answer 1

You can do this with a mailmap file, which can translate authors’ name and email without modifying history.

Create a file .mailmap at the repository root with the following:

dave <[e-mail]>    H1234567 <[e-mail]>

You can set different email address, or keep the original one.

See Documentation/mailmap.txt for more.