Commit Comments automatically create a bulleted list of changes from comments in your code. Write comments using @commit keyword, and they will be added to your commit message when it's time to commit.

It works by using two Git hooks (prepare-commit-msg and post-commit) to search your repository for @commit comments and construct a clean list of changes.

Once you've successfully committed, @commit comments are removed from your files

Clone the repository and move the prepare-commit-msg and post-commit files.

$ git clone https://github.com/thebearjew/commit-comments.git
$ cd commit-comments
$ chmod a+x prepare-commit-msg post-commit
$ cp prepare-commit-msg post-commit your-repository/.git/hooks 

As you're writing code, drop // @commit comments anywhere a significant change has been made.

Commit comments work with (inline & standalone):

• C-like comments (C/C++, Java, JavaScript, etc.) //, /* */
• Python/Ruby/Perl #
• Assembly ;

Example:

foo.js

// @commit: Added a parameter to helloWorld function
function helloWorld(phrase) {
  console.log('Hello World + ' + phrase); /*  @commit - Concatenated strings */
}

Output in Git commit message

# Commit title goes here

- Added a parameter to helloWorld function
- Concatenated strings
# Changes to be committed:
#	modified:   foo.js 
#
# Changes not staged for commit:
# ...

Comments are removed from the original files.

foo.js - after commit


function helloWorld(phrase) {
  console.log('Hello World + ' + phrase); 
}

To ignore some files from being searched, create a .ccignore file in your repository and add file names/types.

README.md
build.sh
.cpp

GNU sed is required to remove @commit comments in post-commit

On Mac OS X, the default sed is from the FreeBSD distribution. To download the GNU sed version, use Brew

$ brew install gnu-sed --with-default-names

will replace the existing sed command with the GNU version. Without the --with-default-names option, the command will be downloaded as gsed.

Search functionality is implemented using pcregrep which is portable to many Linux distributions and OS X. If pcregrep is not available on the system, GNU grep is a backup (not required to use the hooks).

GNU grep is used for the -P Perl Regular Expression flag and the \K variable lookback symbol.

Contributions to improve simplicity/resolve compatibility would be preferred. If there are useful improvements, tricks, or hacks, please submit a Pull Request and a directory of add-ons and snippets will be created.

TODO

• Add filename and line number to bulleted commit commets - suggestion by joncalhoun on HN
• Create more robust regular expression for validating comment syntax
  • Check for multiline block comments
  • Check for closing comment symbols (positive look aheads)
• Programming Languages
  • HTML
  • Fortran
  • AppleScript
• Develop more test cases (finding edge cases with grep expression)
• Rewrite sed commands to be POSIX (BSD) compatible regular expressions

--

Special Thanks to Bryan Wyatt for feedback and bug fixes - @brwyatt