^ in commit_parsers with split_commits not working

[erikthi]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Description of the bug

I am trying to generate a changelog for unconventional commits. The commits may potentially contain more than one change, and I would like to use the commit parsers to grab each relevant part and make a separate entry for them in the changelog.

Steps To Reproduce

Configuration like this

{% else %}\
    ## [unreleased]
{% endif %}\
{% for group, commits in commits | group_by(attribute="group") %}
    ### {{ group | striptags | trim | upper_first }}
    {% for commit in commits %}
        - {% if commit.scope %}*({{ commit.scope }})* {% endif %}\
            {% if commit.breaking %}[**breaking**] {% endif %}\
            {{ commit.message | upper_first }}\
    {% endfor %}
{% endfor %}\n
"""

footer = """
<!-- generated by git-cliff -->
"""
# remove the leading and trailing s
trim = true

[git]
conventional_commits = false
filter_unconventional = false
split_commits = true
commit_parsers = [
  { message = "^fix:", group = "Fixed" },
]
filter_commits = true
topo_order = false
sort_commits = "oldest"

cd $(mktemp -d)
git init .
git commit --allow-empty -m "Unconventional commit" -m "fix: first line of the commit body"
git cliff

This yields an empty changelog.

Expected behavior

I would the changelog to contain:

Fixed

• Fix: first line of the commit body

This is also what happens if I change

commit_parsers = [
  { message = "^fix:", group = "Fixed" },
]

to

commit_parsers = [
  { message = "fix:", group = "Fixed" },
]

Screenshots / Logs

No response

Software information

• Operating system: Mac OS 14.6.1
• Rust version: 1.85.0
• Project version: Tested on both 2.5.0 and 2.8.0

Additional context

No response

[welcome]

Thanks for opening your first issue at git-cliff! Be sure to follow the issue template! ⛰️

[orhun]

Hello, thanks for reporting! 👋🏼

In your case, the generated commit looks like:

    Unconventional commit

    fix: first line of the commit body

1. ^fix: won't catch this, since the message does not start with "fix"
2. fix:: this won't also do it.
3. You need to use .*fix to match on the whole commit message.

[git]
commit_parsers = [
  { message = ".*fix:", group = "Fixed" },
]

P.S. you can't match on specific fields of the commit since it's unconventional + conventional commit parsing is disabled (conventional_commits=false).

[erikthi]

But I am using split_commits, so shouldn't the "fix: first line of the commit body" be treated as one commit message, which does start with "^fix"?.

[orhun]

Yeah I guess the problem is the ordering of the processing. This was changed in #556

[moritz-baecker-integra]

".*fix:" is also not ideal since it catches things like: "bugfix: Test".
I would also expect this to treat every line as message. If it doesn't i think the documentation should be changed on what this option actually does.