Hi, On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 05:32:26PM -0500, Segher Boessenkool wrote: > On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 03:31:52PM -0400, David Malcolm wrote: > > If we're going to migrate to git (I hope so), can we also please > > *slightly* revise the policy on commit messages, to add meaningful > > titles to commits? > > > > Currently: > > https://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/svnwrite.html#checkin says: > > > > "The log message for that checkin should be the complete ChangeLog entry > > for the change." > > > > and the subsection "Commit the changes to the central repository" below > > https://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/svnwrite.html#example > > has an example showing this. > > > > > > In the git world, the first line of the commit message has special > > meaning, being treated as the "title" of the commit. > > It would be nice if we could use a real commit message, not just a short > title line; for example, people who prepare their patches in git already > have that, and use it with format-patch as you say. And many bonus points > if we don't have to repeat the changelog in the commit message (it's in > the commit already, the bugzilla hook could just pull it from out there). >
I suppose it would be too much to try to enforce patch email as the commit message. Patches get changed during discussions in the mailing lists and it would be then quite unclear how to make these combined emails and commit messages useful for both purposes and yet not awkward and superfluous. But let me re-iterate that I do wholeheartedly support the idea of a patch title (which should be the same as the subject of the corresponding mail to the list). > Or we could have another discussion about if we want to have changelogs > at all... > Much less important but: I like them. They force everybody to go through their patches before submitting them, and giving them a chance to spot simple bugs and spurious whitespace changes. <tongue-in-cheek> In fact, I think that auto-generating changelogs should be banned ;-) </tongue-in-cheek> Also, when gcc sources leave any kind of version control system, changelogs are a useful way of identifying what they might be. In any way, that is a separate issue, Martin
