Re: CVS commits and logs

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 13:40:21 +0200
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> 
>   . CVS log entries should be simply the ChangeLog entries with the
>     file name and the leading TABs stripped.  It is okay to reformat
>     and refill the text to make a better use of the line real estate
>     after the leading TABs were removed, but otherwise the text should
>     remain intact (but see below for an exception).
> 
>   . Each file should be committed separately, even if the changes are
>     related, and the CVS log entry should be for the changes in that
>     file only.  In particular, the modified files and the ChangeLog
>     file with the appropriate log entry should be committed separately
>     (thus the CVS log entries for ChangeLog files should never include
>     log entries for the modified files).  Exception: it is okay to
>     commit several changes to a single ChangeLog file in one "cvs ci"
>     command if those changes are related to the same feature/bugfix.
> 
>   . Since the previous rule separates the text for similar or related
>     changes in different files, entries that say "Ditto." or otherwise
>     refer to text for other files' entries should be rewritten to be
>     self-contained in the CVS log.  This is an exception from the
>     first rule, which says that the ChangeLog text should generally
>     remain intact.
> 
>   . The ChangeLog files should be committed with an empty log message
>     (unless this is a real change in the ChangeLog file itself, not an
>     addition of log entries).

One other rule: the date label of the ChangeLog entry should reflect
the date on which the change was _committed_ (as opposed to the date
when the change was made in someone's local sandbox).  In other words,
the dates in the ChangeLog should be monotonically increasing from
bottom to top.  This is frequently an issue when installing someone
else's changes, but can also be a problem if you make a change in your
local sandbox, then wait for a while before committing it.