commit.txt: clarify how --author argument is used

commit --author was added by 146ea06 (git commit --author=$name: look $name up
in existing commits), but its documentation was sorely lacking compared to its
excellent commit message. This commit tries to improve the documentation.

Signed-off-by: Jay Soffian <jaysoffian@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

diff --git a/Documentation/git-commit.txt b/Documentation/git-commit.txt
index 64fb458b4533eeda9c583ac926025495b260cf9b..69eb86e4506411b0d8029f849fd4ebff47166d05 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/git-commit.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-commit.txt
@@ -95,10 +95,11 @@ OPTIONS
        read the message from the standard input.
 
 --author=<author>::
-       Override the author name used in the commit.  You can use the
-       standard `A U Thor <author@example.com>` format.  Otherwise,
-       an existing commit that matches the given string and its author
-       name is used.
+       Override the commit author. Specify an explicit author using the
+       standard `A U Thor <author@example.com>` format. Otherwise <author>
+       is assumed to be a pattern and is used to search for an existing
+       commit by that author (i.e. rev-list --all -i --author=<author>);
+       the commit author is then copied from the first such commit found.
 
 --date=<date>::
        Override the author date used in the commit.