Re: ChangeLogs in commit messages

Pedro Alves <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.gdb.devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 08/14/2014 01:52 PM, Joel Brobecker wrote:
>>   1. With paths and with the date-and-author header:
>>
>>     gdb/
>>     2014-07-30  Gary Benson  <[email protected]>
>>
>>             * btrace.c: Include defs.h.
>>             * common/ptid.c: Include defs.h or server.h as appropriate.
>>             * nat/mips-linux-watch.c: Likewise.
>>
>>   2. With date-and-author headers but no paths:
>>
>>     2014-08-04  Tom Tromey  <[email protected]>
>>       
>>             * gdb.base/sss-bp-on-user-bp-2.exp: Match "to_resume", not
>>             "target_resume".
>>
>>   3. With paths but no date-and-author headers:
>>
>>     gdb/ChangeLog:
>>       
>>             * amd64-windows-tdep.c (amd64_windows_frame_decode_insns):
>>               Add debug trace.
>>
>>   4. With no preamble at all:
>>
>>             * chew.c (print_stack_level, main): Cast result of pointer
>>             difference to match format string.
>>
>> What are people's preferences here?  My preference is #1, but I could
>> live with #3.  If we come to some kind of concensus on this I'll
>> update the wiki to reflect this.
> 
> #3, since date and author are often redundant with the commit's
> author. And even if not in the same, it's in the ChangeLog entry
> that should be checked in as part of the commit. Also, I feel
> like having those in the CL is an extra source of potential
> issue (eg: if forgot to update the date), and revision logs
> cannot be fixed once the commit has been pushed, whereas dates
> in ChangeLog entries can.

Because on git, email == patch == commit, I've now noticed that we're
now actually losing author info in patch _submissions_ because of
this rule and the rule that we don't post the ChangeLog diff.

E.g., I suspect this patch:

  https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2014-08/msg00650.html

will end up with both Gary's and Tom's name in the ChangeLog,
but that's really just a guess.

This makes it impossible for someone else to push the patch
other than the submitter, because not all the info is there.

It's a bigger issue even if someone posts a patch written or
co-written by someone that might not have copyright
assignment in place.

I think author info must be explicit in patch submissions
somehow.

Thanks,
Pedro Alves
lmpx.com only provides a reader for public news (NNTP) servers. It is not affiliated with the servers or forums shown here and is not responsible for the content of articles, which is written by their respective authors.