I am no git- expert; I mostly just branch and commit, that's the extent of my knowledge. Can you point me into the direction of some information regarding this (specific commands I could use?)

And 'Odd' is an understatement ;P these files are fairly old (I oldest was made in 1999 and the last version was from 2002) and the client was lucky they found the initial set and the last version on separate backups (floppies !). What we initially did was commit the initial version and then overwrite them with the latest version and commit again. So we now have a git history of the difference between the originals and the revisions. My job is to check if the final version is correct e.i either conform the work specification of the time (report), or any of the revisions (as-built) since then. And then create a comment that can be read by both the operator console and the archive-system. My best guess is someone's nephew created this program because why anyone would use XML for this is beyond me, although I guess in 1999 this was state-of-the-art? And no one wants to touch that codebase with a 5ft pole, lol. Anyway, the comments are parsed in a specific and precise way.

EDIT: As for your question about #ACCEPTED. The rules are "simple" each comment should start with either %ATTCHANGE, %REM, %ADD or %NOTE then 2 colons, then the old element (complete) or the ols attribute (seperated) or the note, then again 2 colons and last either #ACCEPTED, #DENIED or #REVIEW. Reveiw is followed by any text explaining why it needs reviewed, and denied and accepted are followed by either "see report xxxxx" or "as-built xxxxx" where xxxx is some reference.