Merge with empty commit changes commit message title

[cheng-liven]

Version

0.14.10

Operating System

Windows

Distribution Method

msi (Windows)

Describe the issue

See reproduce steps.

Reason for this action: to update the commit time to current time after add more changes to an existing commit.

How to reproduce (Optional)

1. Create a new commit with changes and commit message title and empty message body
2. Create a new empty commit above
3. Merge 1st commit into the empty commit
4. Now the 1st commit message title become message body in the new commit while new commit message title become empty

Expected behavior (Optional)

Preserve the commit message title. (This was the behaviour prior 0.14.8 I think.)

Relevant log output (Optional)

[Byron]

Thanks a lot for reporting!

I tried to reproduce the issue but failed.

Screen.Recording.2025-03-11.at.11.18.01.mov

Could you have a look at the video and help me understand what went wrong when trying to reproduce the issue? Thank you.

[cheng-liven]

Hi @Byron , the new commit message looks correct on app UI, however after I push the combined commit to gitlab, the commit title is empty while the old commit title is in the folded "description" on gitlab pages.

If I manually edit the combined commit message again, just "submit" the message dialog directly without change anything, the message will be correct on gitlab after force push the "newly edited" (save message directly without changing anything) commit.

This issue only occurs in recent versions.

[Byron]

Thanks, that's very helpful!

My first hypothesis is that the UI may show something stale, so after creating a commit that would show up incorrectly in GitLab, but shows correctly in GitButler, could you hit Ctrl + R (or View -> Reload View)? If after reloading the view it still looks correct, there must be something going on with whitespace.

To check whitespace, could you show the last line of this invocation (assuming the commit in question sits directly on a branch named branch):

git cat-file -p branch-name | hexyl

This would show the whitespace in the 'bad' state.

(hexyl can be downloaded here).

Then, after editing the 'broken' commit in the UI, invoke the command again to show the 'good' state.

I'd expect some difference in whitespace. After testing, I already noticed that GitButler leaves two newlines after the message title…

│00000140│ 0a 65 64 69 74 65 64 20 ┊ 69 6e 20 55 49 0a 0a    │_edited ┊in UI__ │

…while Git leaves only one if the body is empty.

│00000440│ 2d 0a 0a 61 64 64 20 62 ┊ 61 72 0a                │-__add b┊ar_     │

Thanks again.

[cheng-liven]

Refresh View does not change anything and it still looks correct.

On my device: | hexyl gives 3 0a before the title content for the merged commit initially, and after "edit", only 2 0a left before title, "edit" again and it's still 2 0a. Other git branches (without empty titles) also have 2 0a before title. (Ubuntu 22.04 WSL on Windows 11)