diff --git a/scripts/authors.pl b/scripts/authors.pl
index d1f98ecaad3..89502c6985c 100755
--- a/scripts/authors.pl
+++ b/scripts/authors.pl
@@ -15,9 +15,16 @@
 our $deletions;
 our $author;
 
-while (<>) {
+my $input;
+if (@ARGV > 0) {
+  open $input, "git log --shortstat -z --minimal -w -C $ARGV[0]|" or die "cannot open pipe for $ARGV[0]: $!\n";
+} else {
+  $input = \*STDIN;
+}
+
+while (<$input>) {
   ($author) = /Author: (.*) </;
-  my ($insert, $delete) = /files changed, (\d+) insert.*(\d+) delet/;
+  my ($insert, $delete) = /files changed, (\d+) insert.* (\d+) delet/;
   next unless defined $insert;
   $auth{$author} = [0, 0, 0] unless defined($auth{$author});
   my @l = @{$auth{$author}};