Re: More consistency for Git log messages?

[Martin Sebor <msebor@gmail.com>]

On 12/29/20 1:49 AM, Jonathan Wakely via Gcc wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Dec 2020, 23:55 Gerald Pfeifer, <gerald@pfeifer.com> wrote:
> 
>> Having spent a bit more time with GCC sources (as opposed to wwwdocs)
>> recently and looking for prior art to guide me, I noticed there's a
>> lot of options to specific the ChangeLog file(s) to use.
>>
>> And correspondingly a lot of inconsistency.
>>
>> Right now we seem to allow for
>>
>>   1. gcc/cp/ChangeLog
>>   2. gcc/cp/ChangeLog:
>>   3. gcc/cp
>>   4. gcc/cp:
>>   5. gcc/cp/
>>
>> and probably more.
>>
> 
> We also allow not specifying the directory at all, if it can be deduced
> from the changed files.

That's a nice feature I didn't even know about!

>> Can we streamline this a bit and converge on one of the forms 3-5?
>>
>> Personally I'd suggest 3 (the shortest) or 5 (the directory), but whatever
>> ... as long as things become more consistent, which is easier on newbies
>> and reading logs (or automatically processing them later on).
>>
> 
> We already process them automatically.
> 
> It's worth noting that some people generate then automatically too, and the
> mklog.py hook uses form 2 IIRC.

I believe you're right.  I use the script to generate a template
for my first patch.  For subsequent revisions I copy the template
from the first one and edit it by hand (and often mess things up,
making the commit hook complain).

I rarely read ChangeLogs so I'm not bothered by inconsistencies
in it but I can relate to those who do and are.  I'm not against
increasing the consistency of the format just as long as it
doesn't make the commit procedure more onerous.  Changing
the commit hook to massage the ChangeLog lines (and any other
minutiae) into a preferred format would do that.

Martin