bug#20401: refill long lines in generated ChangeLog

bug#20401: refill long lines in generated ChangeLog

[Glenn Morris]

Package: emacs
Version: 25.0.50
Severity: minor

`make ChangeLog' creates entries longer than 80 columns; see example.
I had hoped that it would refill overly long lines.

2015-04-20  Glenn Morris  <rgm@gnu.org>

	Avoid non-nil current-load-list at startup
	* src/process.c (init_process_emacs): Move Fprovide statement...
	(syms_of_process): ... to here.

	* lisp/loadup.el (custom-current-group-alist): Reset before dumping.

	* lisp/startup.el (command-line) <site-run-file>: Avoid rogue value in emacs -Q.


Many bonus points if it fills it the "smart" way that I would have done
had I written it by hand. ;)

        * lisp/startup.el (command-line) <site-run-file>:
        Avoid rogue value in emacs -Q.

Yes, it's probably my fault. I was "forced" into it by git's IMO silly
"if more than one line, second line should be blank" convention.

But it's not just me that has written lines slightly too long.

bug#20401: refill long lines in generated ChangeLog

[Paul Eggert]

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> it's not just me that has written lines slightly too long.

That's right, lots of people are doing it, and it makes more busywork when 
cleaning up ChangeLogs, which sucks.  I don't have much faith in fixing this 
automagically, as a lot could go wrong.

There's a much simpler fix (see attached) but Stefan nixed it (see 
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2014-12/msg01640.html>) for 
reasons that I don't follow.  Perhaps we could take another run at him and he'll 
relent this time.

Another possibility is that we set the tab-width in ChangeLog files to 2, so 
that 78-character log lines fit in ChangeLog files when displayed via Emacs. 
(I'm *sure* nobody would complain about *that*. :-)

But really, it'd be simpler to shrink that "78" back to "72".

[-- Attachment #2: 0001-Encourage-shorter-commit-message-lines.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 938 bytes --]

From 9ba2c1fc35590c41fba623f892af7dd9c75e5f5b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2015 18:14:35 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Encourage shorter commit message lines

This helps keep generated ChangeLog lines less than 80 characters
(Bug#20401).
* build-aux/git-hooks/commit-msg: Limit lines to 72 characters.
---
 build-aux/git-hooks/commit-msg | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/build-aux/git-hooks/commit-msg b/build-aux/git-hooks/commit-msg
index 9661376..5e46d9f 100755
--- a/build-aux/git-hooks/commit-msg
+++ b/build-aux/git-hooks/commit-msg
@@ -110,8 +110,8 @@ exec $awk -v at_sign="$at_sign" -v cent_sign="$cent_sign" '
     }
   }
 
-  78 < length && $0 ~ space {
-    print "Line longer than 78 characters in commit message"
+  72 < length && $0 ~ space {
+    print "Line longer than 72 characters in commit message"
     status = 1
   }
 
-- 
2.1.0

bug#20401: refill long lines in generated ChangeLog

[Glenn Morris]

Paul Eggert wrote:

> I don't have much faith in fixing this automagically, as a lot could
> go wrong.

You're probably right. (Perhaps we could use Emacs to fill the entries tho'.)

bug#20401: refill long lines in generated ChangeLog

[Glenn Morris]

PS I'd appreciate the suggested font-lock warning for "long" VC log lines
(Though I commit from the released version, so it will be a while before
I can take advantage of it.)