Changelog scripts

Changelog scripts

[Vasilij Schneidermann]

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Hello,

I've found that the gcc developers set up a set of client- and server-side
scripts for Git [1] which verify commits for correct changelog format usage and
generate changelog files from all commits.  IIRC there has been copious
discussion on the merits of the latter before with no clear conclusion, however
I believe that validating commits would be helpful, especially for new
contributors.  In case the gcc scripts are not considered good enough, perhaps
the vc-dwim tools [2] or some existing Emacs Lisp code [3] could do.

I've run into this particular hurdle numerous times and would prefer Git to
yell at me instead of the maintainer reviewing my patch :)

Vasilij

[1]: https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc-patches/2020-May/545662.html
[2]: https://www.gnu.org/software/vc-dwim/
[3]: lisp/vc/add-log.el

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Re: Changelog scripts

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 20 May 2020 20:50:00 +0200
> From: Vasilij Schneidermann <emacs-devel@vasilij.de>
> 
> I've found that the gcc developers set up a set of client- and server-side
> scripts for Git [1] which verify commits for correct changelog format usage and
> generate changelog files from all commits.  IIRC there has been copious
> discussion on the merits of the latter before with no clear conclusion, however
> I believe that validating commits would be helpful, especially for new
> contributors.  In case the gcc scripts are not considered good enough, perhaps
> the vc-dwim tools [2] or some existing Emacs Lisp code [3] could do.

We produce ChangeLog files from Git logs for several years now.  (GCC,
by contrast, maintained actual ChangeLog files until very recently.)

As for checking the log format: it isn't that GCC scripts are "not
good enough".  They are GCC-specific, in the sense that they do
various things such as formatting the logs according to what the GCC
developers are used to, which is different from what we do.  They have
several rules that we explicitly don't endorse, and others (e.g.,
related to branches) that are not relevant for us.

Of course, if someone wants to work on a similar script for our
purposes, feel free.