Git Commit Object Author and Commiter Fields

Question

I am trying to make a server using Java that runs on a Linux machine and I would like my server to support Git in a similar fashion to GitHub. I have figured out a lot of things to achieve this but there is one thing I would like to know...

Assuming I have the following Git object (with a header) deflated and stored in the file system.

tree d35e45b7a3ec1bfd4d91b87c16d08fc4effc6dba
parent 385f73f0f5d38c6258a7d55038c9ceb24cd63157
author ThePyroEagle <exampleEmail@example.com> 1418335844 +0000
commiter ThePyroEagle <exampleEmail@example.com> 1418335844 +0000

What does "1418335844 +0000" at the end mean?

I thought this might be a timestamp in milliseconds, but when I parsed it I got "17 January 1970" using the following code.

Date date = new Date(1418335844L);
System.out.printf("Current Time: %s\n",
        (new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMMM yyyy")).format(date));

Whatever this may be, how would I go about parsing it?

It is a timestamp, but in seconds – fge Jan 10 '15 at 09:41 — fge, Jan 10 '15 at 09:41

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

3

The git commit date format states:

Git internal format

It is <unix timestamp> <time zone offset>, where:

<unix timestamp> is the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch.

<time zone offset> is a positive or negative offset from UTC. For example CET (which is 2 hours ahead UTC) is +0200.

See:

Epoch converter: 1418335844 => Thu, 11 Dec 2014 22:10:44 GMT
"convert epoch time to date"
"Java: Date from unix timestamp"

edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

Community

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answered Jan 10 '15 at 09:42

VonC

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Thanks for the helpful information. The date you got with the converter is the exact date of the commit. – ThePyroEagle Jan 10 '15 at 09:57

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 10 '15 at 09:41

2

It's a timestamp in seconds: 2014-12-11T22:10:44+00:00.

answered Jan 10 '15 at 09:41

chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic-

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Git Commit Object Author and Commiter Fields

2 Answers2

Git internal format