Re: [PATCH]: Updates to Ada sources, part 1 (longish)

Andrew Cagney
2004-06-05T13:33:29Z

>>> Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 14:31:57 -0400
>>> From: Andrew Cagney <cagney@gnu.org>
>>
>>>> >
>>>> > That'd be fine with me, but I'd also suggest to have a pointer to
>>>> > ChangeLog.GNAT in gdb/ChangeLog, right where the import of Ada changes
>>>> > is recorded. Something like "See ChangeLog.GNAT for details of the
>>>> > changes."
>>
>>>
>>> Please don't do this. ChangeLog.XXX is good for branches (as with even
>>> readline/ChangeLog.gdb) but not for what is ment to be the mainline.
>
>
> I agree with the principle, but I don't think it is such a sacred one
> that would justify asking the GNAT people to invest such a large
> effort.
>
> We need the information to be there, and the suggested compromises
> achieve that with a reasonable effort.

We've on a number of occasions seen large through to extreemly large
merges (HP comes to mind) and on each occason the contributor,
unprompted, ensure that a correct ChangeLog was included.

>>> The ChangeLog entry should provide a summary of what was added/changed
>>> at this point in time - stuff like listing the new functions and summary
>>> of changed functions. Can we do that?
>
>
> How many man-hours would you say is reasonable for such an effort?
> 1? 10? 100? 1000? Where, if at all, do we draw the line?

We're talking an hour or perhaphs two, and something we're _all_
expected to do willingly.

The way to do this is to ignore the history and just look at the final
diff. A bit of sed'n'sort will in a matter of minutes give the
functions added/deleted bit, leaving just terse verbage of the other
functions changed. Can we do that?

>>> Much of the stuff in that GNAT ChangeLog will no longer be relevant.
>
>
> I understand that the problem is to translate the irrelevant suff into
> something that is relevant. I suggested that at first, but the GNAT
> people tell that it will take a lot of work.
>
>
>>> I'm told Diego took rougly a day to prepare his tree-SSA ChangeLog entry.
>
>
> Who is Diego and how is the tree-SSA stuff relevant to our case?

Diego did a very very large (read 4 years of work x many people) merge
of GCC's mainline. When committed it included a very large (but terse)
ChangeLog entry.

Andrew