Re: ChangeLogs in commit messages

[Gary Benson <gbenson@redhat.com>]

Joel Brobecker wrote:
> > > 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.
> 
> That's probably the strongest argument in favor of putting
> the full ChangeLog entry in the revision log. I'm just having
> a hard time accepting the fact that we going to include a date
> in the revision log which could be wrong because added by hand.
> And once it's pushed, there is no going back, so no way to fix it.
> 
> Recognizing the fact that the majority of patches have one single
> author who is also the submitter, perhaps we could use the no-date/
> no-author format for those cases, and provide a way to specify
> for those few times where necessary? Seems complicated, perhaps...

Optional authors lines below "path/to/ChangeLog:"?

  Introduce target/target.h

  This introduces target/target.h.  This file declares some functions
  that the shared code can use and that clients must implement.  It
  also changes some shared code to use these functions.

  gdb/ChangeLog:
    Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com>
    Gary Benson <gbenson@redhat.com>

          * target/target.h: New file.
          * Makefile.in (HFILES_NO_SRCDIR): Add target/target.h.
          * target.h: Include target/target.h.
          ...        
  
  gdb/gdbserver/ChangeLog:
    Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com>
    Gary Benson <gbenson@redhat.com>

          * target.h: Include target/target.h.
          * target.c (target_read_memory, target_read_uint32)
          ...

In terms of parsing, the "/ChangeLog:" marks the start of a ChangeLog
entry, and the blank line marks the end of any optional authors lines.
If no authors lines are present then the committer is the author.

Cheers,
Gary

-- 
http://gbenson.net/