if a file has no git logs, use the last modified timestamp instead of the current

[eshaben]

I'm experiencing an interesting issue where I get the following error for a few of the pages of the documentation site I am working on:

WARNING  -  [git-revision-date-localized-plugin] '<file path>' has no git logs, using current timestamp

Then when I view the pages it shows the last modified date correctly, but for the created date, it shows the current date. For example:

Last update:
March 6, 2023
Created:
March 23, 2023

I think if there are no logs found for the created date, it should default to the last update date if available.

It'd also be nice to know the underlying reason why it can't find the git logs for when these pages were created, if you have any ideas?

[timvink]

Hi @eshaben ,

Thanks for reporting. Definitely something wrong here.

The difference between last modified and creation date in commands is only very small:

mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin/mkdocs_git_revision_date_localized_plugin/util.py

Lines 122 to 124 in 6150fad

	commit_timestamp = git.log(
	realpath, date="unix", format="%at", diff_filter="A", no_show_signature=True, follow=True
	)

mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin/mkdocs_git_revision_date_localized_plugin/util.py

Lines 132 to 134 in 6150fad

	commit_timestamp = git.log(
	realpath, date="unix", format="%at", n=1, no_show_signature=True
	)

That translates to:

git log --date=unix --format=%at -n=1 --diff-filter=A <filepath>
git log --date=unix --format=%at -n=1 <filepath>

Could you have a look for one of the pages and run those two commands? I wonder if the first command return something empty or an error..

You're probably not the only one, so keen to figure this one out :)

[eshaben]

Thanks for the response! 🙂

Sure. This is one of the pages we're getting this error on: https://github.com/PureStake/moonbeam-docs/blob/master/builders/build/eth-api/dev-env/scaffold-eth.md

When I run git log --date=unix --format=%at -n 1 --diff-filter=A -- builders/build/eth-api/dev-env/scaffold-eth.md I get 1646250817

Then when I run git log --date=unix --format=%at -n 1 -- builders/build/eth-api/dev-env/scaffold-eth.md I get 1673346506.

[karlgo]

@eshaben - Did you figure out your issue? I'm encountering the same thing, even though I do have git logs for the file in question.

[eshaben]

@karlgo I implemented a workaround. Created a script that checks if the created data is after the last updated date, and, if so, changes the created date to be the same as the last updated. For reference: https://github.com/moonbeam-foundation/moonbeam-docs/blob/master/js/fixCreatedDate.js

[timvink]

This is likely due to a known bug in git. See:

mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin/docs/options.md

Lines 119 to 124 in 8e7cad1

	## `enable_git_follow`
	Default is `true`. When enabled it will use `git log --follow` to find the git history. This means git will follow changes if you rename or move the file also.
	Despite being a sensible default, there is a known bug with `--follow`: if you have committed an empty version of a file, then `git log --follow` can follow the wrong trail and give wrong results (see [this blogpost](https://blog.plover.com/prog/git-log-follow.html)).
	When disabled (by setting it to `false`), each file's history will only consist of its current name and path, it's history from the previous paths or names will not be included.

If this happens, I now log a warning (use mkdocs build --strict to turn that into an error), and ensure creation date is never older than the last revision date. See #163