git mailmap

August 26, 2024

I work on my Git repositories from different machines, which separates my contributions over different Git identities. Looking at all developers that contributed to one of my project’s repository, we get the following:

(base) pvdsp@laptop:~/git/⋯$ git shortlog -sne
    71  Patrick Van der Spiegel <pvdsp@⋯.be>
    58  Patrick Van der Spiegel <patrick@⋯.com>
    ⋯
<span style="display:flex"><span>(base) pvdsp@laptop:~/git/⋯$ git shortlog -sne
</span></span><span style="display:flex"><span>    71  Patrick Van der Spiegel <pvdsp@⋯.be>
</span></span><span style="display:flex"><span>    58  Patrick Van der Spiegel <patrick@⋯.com>
</span></span><span style="display:flex"><span>    ⋯
</span></span>

Adding a .mailmap file to the root directory of the repository — following the Proper Name <[email protected]> <[email protected]> structure — fixes this issue:

Patrick Van der Spiegel <pvdsp@⋯.be> <patrick@⋯.com>
Patrick Van der Spiegel <pvdsp@⋯.be> <patrick@⋯.com>

(base) pvdsp@laptop:~/git/⋯$ git shortlog -sne
   129  Patrick Van der Spiegel <pvdsp@⋯.be>
<span style="display:flex"><span>(base) pvdsp@laptop:~/git/⋯$ git shortlog -sne
</span></span><span style="display:flex"><span>   129  Patrick Van der Spiegel <pvdsp@⋯.be>
</span></span>