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git-blame(1) can ignore a list of commits specified via --ignore-revs-file or the blame.ignoreRevsFile configuration option. This is useful for skipping uninteresting revisions such as tree-wide formatting changes, large-scale refactors, and code modernizations that would otherwise obscure genuine historical authorship. When revision-ignoring was introduced in commit ae3f36d ("blame: add blame.ignoreRevsFile config option", 2019-10-18), it intentionally avoided adopting a default ignore file. At the time, the capability was new and unproven, so avoiding unrequested filesystem I/O or unexpected attribution shifts took priority over a project-wide default. Requiring explicit opt-in per clone was therefore the prudent design. Since then, maintaining a .git-blame-ignore-revs file in the repository root has become the de facto standard across the Git ecosystem, adopted by major hosting platforms (GitHub, GitLab, Gerrit) and prominent open source projects (such as Chromium and LLVM). As a consequence, developers frequently encounter a jarring mismatch: web interfaces seamlessly ignore formatting commits, but local git-blame(1) and git-annotate(1) runs do not, unless each user manually configures blame.ignoreRevsFile for every local checkout. Teach git-blame(1) and git-annotate(1) to automatically check for a regular .git-blame-ignore-revs file at the root of the working tree when operating in a non-bare repository. To ensure consistent precedence, security, and override semantics: - Loading the default file occurs before reading configuration and CLI options, preserving user and repository config overrides. - Path resolution is anchored to repo_get_work_tree() and verified via lstat() to ensure it is a regular file. Symbolic links, directories, FIFOs, and sockets are safely skipped, preventing local information disclosure and denial-of-service hangs. - In build_ignorelist(), ignore-rev files are parsed starting after the last empty string entry. This ensures setting blame.ignoreRevsFile to "" or passing --ignore-revs-file "" or --no-ignore-revs-file cleanly discards the default file without attempting to open or parse it, allowing users to bypass corrupted default files. - Duplicate parsing is prevented by tracking seen files in a strset. Update documentation in blame-options.adoc and config/blame.adoc, and add comprehensive test coverage in t8013 for the default file lookup, subdirectory invocations, CLI and config overrides, symlink rejection, comments and whitespace handling, and bare repositories. Based-on-patch-by: Abhijeetsingh Meena <abhijeet040403@gmail.com> Helped-by: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name> Helped-by: Phillip Wood <phillip.wood@dunelm.org.uk> Helped-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com> Signed-off-by: Ravi Mistry <rmistry@google.com>
Welcome to GitGitGadgetHi @rmistry, and welcome to GitGitGadget, the GitHub App to send patch series to the Git mailing list from GitHub Pull Requests. Please make sure that either:
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User rmistry is now allowed to use GitGitGadget. |
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Thank you @dscho for allowing this pull request. /submit |
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Submitted as pull.2224.git.1789169384240.gitgitgadget@gmail.com To fetch this version into To fetch this version to local tag |
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Thanks for picking it up @rmistry. I started working on it but got carried away in another direction, looking into detecting and considering .git-blame-ignore-revs from each project subdirectory, how they take precedence over each other, and how to override them (see #1809). This implementation looks great! It seems to auto-detect the ignore revs file at the root only. I just glanced through the changes, though, and haven’t tested it yet. |
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Thank you @Ethan0456 for the kind words and for kicking off the initial work! Keeping the scope focused strictly on the repository root helps keep things clean and aligned with how hosting platforms (GitHub, GitLab) and major repositories (Chromium, LLVM, Android) use the blame file. |
3 participants
This series restarts the conversation from the stalled attempt in PR
#1809
and addresses feature request
#1494
See the previous discussion in
https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.1809.v2.git.1728707867.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/
In addition to resolving the questions raised by reviewers during the
previous discussion, this updated iteration introduces important security
hardening, bug fixes, and test improvements:
Commit message rationale:
The commit message now details why revision ignoring originally avoided
a default file when the feature was first added:
git@ae3f36d
It explains why ecosystem standardization across GitHub, GitLab, Gerrit,
Chromium, and LLVM makes a default file desirable today, addressing the
previous feedback from Phillip Wood.
Trailers acknowledge earlier patch authorship and reviewer contributions.
Security and path resolution:
Path lookup is anchored to repo_get_work_tree(). Using lstat ensures that
symbolic links, directories, FIFOs, and sockets are skipped safely.
Configuration and option override semantics:
The build_ignorelist() function begins processing after the last empty
string entry. Setting blame.ignoreRevsFile to an empty string or providing
an empty filename option on the command line allows users to bypass a
corrupted default file without encountering a fatal error.
Documentation updates:
Documentation clarifies that configured files are processed after the
default file. It explains how providing an empty filename disables the
default file and notes that bare repositories do not search for the
file. Documentation checks pass without warning.
Test harness improvements:
The test suite removes the destructive repository reset in t8013 and adds
test coverage for comments, whitespace, zero byte files, symlink rejection,
corrupted file overrides, and git annotate parity. Test lint checks pass
without error.
CC: Abhijeetsingh Meena abhijeet040403@gmail.com
CC: Kristoffer Haugsbakk code@khaugsbakk.name
CC: Phillip Wood phillip.wood@dunelm.org.uk
CC: Eric Sunshine sunshine@sunshineco.com