Junk Drawer
For all those little papers scattered across your desk
Junk DrawerFor all those little papers scattered across your desk
I stand for the Constitution, for due process, and for community that takes care of each other.
Some insist that commit subjects be capitalized. Does this actually happen in practice?
Here’s a quick analysis of the Git source repository (see my fields script or use your own):
git log --oneline --no-decorate | fields 2 |
tee >(grep -c '^[[:lower:]]' >lower) >(grep -c '^[[:upper:]]' >upper) >/dev/null
diff -y lower upper
# => 44019 | 30636
Looks roughly even, with a slight preference for lower case words (~59%). But if we filter out automatic messages from merges and reverts:
git log --oneline --no-decorate | fields 2 |
tee >(grep -c '^[[:lower:]]' >lower) \
>(grep -v -e Merge -e Revert | grep -c '^[[:upper:]]' >upper) >/dev/null
diff -y lower upper
# => 44019 | 11423
Well, that’s just above 79% preference for lowercase.
Measurements taken from the branch I happened to be on, which is daee763610 (completion: repair config completion for Zsh, 2024-12-29).
Note that the total from the first report (74655) undercounts the number of
commits by about 1109 according to git rev-list --count HEAD. This is exactly
the number of commits output by
git log --oneline --no-decorate | fields 2 | grep -cv -e '^[[:lower:]]' -e '^[[:upper:]]'
Here’s a histogram of the starts that got omitted by my simple measure (remove
-c on the previous grep and pipe to sort | uniq -c | sort -rn):
892 [PATCH]
36 .mailmap:
19 [PATCH
14 "git
12 .gitignore:
9 .gitattributes:
4 __attribute__:
4 2.36
4 *:
3 [patch]
3 .mailmap
3 --walk-reflogs:
3 --pretty=format:
3 *.sh:
3 *.h:
3 *.c
3 *.[ch]:
3 'git
3 "log
3 "Assume
2 {fetch,upload}-pack:
2 0th
2 -u
2 --dirstat:
2 *.[ch]
2 (trivial)
2 $EMAIL
2 "remote
2 "rebase
2 "make
1 {upload,receive}-pack
1 {reset,merge}:
1 {lock,commit,rollback}_packed_refs():
1 {cvs,svn}import:
1 {builtin/*,repository}.c:
1 `git
1 _XOPEN_SOURCE
1 _GIT_INDEX_OUTPUT:
1 \n
1 [fr]
1 ?alloc:
1 3%
1 2.3.2
1 .gitignore
1 .github/workflows/main.yml:
1 .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md:
1 ./configure.ac:
1 -Wuninitialized:
1 -Wold-style-definition
1 --utf8
1 --summary
1 --prune
1 --name-only,
1 --format=pretty:
1 --dirstat-by-file:
1 --base-path-relaxed
1 *config.txt:
1 *.h
1 (various):
1 (squash)
1 (short)
1 (revert
1 (encode_85,
1 (cvs|svn)import:
1 (Hopefully)
1 'make
1 'git-merge':
1 'build'
1 $GIT_COMMON_DIR:
1 "test"
1 "reset
1 "needs
1 "lib-diff"
1 "init-db"
1 "git-tag
1 "git-push
1 "git-merge":
1 "git-fetch
1 "git-apply
1 "git-add
1 "git"
1 "format-patch
1 "diff
1 "current_exec_path"
1 "core.sharedrepository
1 "color.diff
1 "checkout
1 "branch
1 "blame
1 "assume
1 "add
1
Just for kicks, if I try the 2nd word of the commit message in those cases:
git log --oneline --no-decorate | fields 2 3 |
grep -v -e '^[[:lower:]]' -e '^[[:upper:]]' | fields 2 |
tee >(grep -c '^[[:lower:]]' >lower) >(grep -c '^[[:upper:]]' >upper) >/dev/null
diff -y lower upper
# => 491 | 567
We’re still undercounting by 51, but the above doesn’t modify our results much (essentially still within the rounding I used). The 51 commits ought to be in the noise. Even attributing them all as upper case, the rounded percentages don’t change.