~bzr-pqm/bzr/bzr.dev

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Setting up email

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The various ways that exist to tell Bazaar your email address for

commits.

Why set up an email address with Bazaar?

========================================

Bazaar stores the claimed email address in revisions when they're

created, so that people can tell who commited which revisions.  Of course,

people can change the email address claimed, so you have to trust the

people involved.  Additionally, the email address in a revision gives

others a way to contact the author of a revision for credit and/or blame.

:)

How to setup your email address 

===============================

Bazaar will try to guess an email address based on your username and the

hostname if none is set.  This will probably not be what you want, so three

ways exist to tell Bazaar what email to use

 * You can set your email in the default ini file,

 * You can set emails per-branch in the branch specific ini file,

 * Or your email can be set by an environmental variable.

The order of precedence is

 1. If the `$BZREMAIL` env variable is set, use it.

 2. If an email is set for your current branch in the `locations.conf` ini

    file.

 3. If an email is set in the `bazaar.conf` default ini file.

 4. If the `$EMAIL` env variable is set.

 5. Bazaar will try to guess based on your username and the hostname.

To check on what Bazaar thinks your current email is, use the '''whoami'''

("who am i?") command::

    % bzr whoami

    Joe Cool <joe@example.com>

Setting email via the 'whoami' command

======================================

You can use the whoami command to set your email globally::

    % bzr whoami 'Joe Cool <joe@example.com>'

or only for the current branch::

    % bzr whoami --branch 'Joe Cool <joe@example.com>'

These modify your global bazaar.conf or branch branch.conf file, respectively.

Setting email via default ini file

==================================

To use the default ini file, create the file `$HOME/.bazaar/bazaar.conf` (on

Windows this is `%APPDATA%\bazaar\2.0\bazaar.conf`) and set an email address

as shown below.  Please note that the word DEFAULT is case sensitive, and

must be in upper-case.::

    [DEFAULT]

    email=Your Name <name@isp.com>

For more information on the ini file format, see ConfiguringBzr.

Setting email on a per-branch basis

===================================

The second approach is to set email on a branch by branch basis by using the

`$HOME/.bazaar/locations.conf` ini file, thusly::

    [/some/branch/location]

    email=Your Name <name@other-isp.com>

This will set your email address in the branch at `/some/branch/location`,

overriding the default specified in the `bazaar.conf` above.

Setting email via environment

-----------------------------

The final method Bazaar will use is checking for the `$BZREMAIL` and

`$EMAIL` environment variables.  Generally, one would use this method to

override the email in a script context.  If you would like to set a general

default, then please see the ini methods above.

Concerns for spam

=================

Some people want to avoid sharing their email address so as not to get

spam.  Bazaar will never disclose your email address, unless you publish

a branch or changeset in a public location.  It's recommended that you

''do'' use a real address, so that people can contact you about your work,

but it's not required.  You can use an address which is obfuscated, which

bounces, or which goes through an anti-spam service such as

`spamgourmet.com`.