Re: CEDET Merge

[David Engster]

Glenn Morris writes:
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>
>>> >> I always followed the general rule that the generated ChangeLogs
>>> >> should have the date when the change enters the Emacs repository
>>> >
>>> > Indeed, that is our rule.
>>> 
>>> That was the rule when ChangeLogs were hand-written, but since the
>>> switch to generated ChangeLogs it does not (and cannot) apply.
>>> Git does not record that date.
>>
>> Git obviously does record the commit date, so there's no problem with
>> that rule.
>
> The commit date has no relation to "the date when the change enters the
> Emacs repository" (ie, was pushed to Savannah).
>
> If you want a recent example of this, "make ChangeLog" and look at the
> dates of "recent" concurrency entries. Some are years old.
>
> Eg git log --fuller 0ccc5d8998a
> Both git dates are 2012-08-15, but the correct date would be 2016-12-10:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-diffs/2016-12/msg00144.html

Yes, that's a problem with long-living feature branches. It'd be nice if
'make ChangeLog' would use the commit date of the merge commit for all
commits that entered Emacs through a branch merge.

If that isn't easily possible, the person who does the merge could do a
filter-branch before merging, setting GIT_COMMITTER_DATE to the current
date (if 'make ChangeLog' would actually use the committer date, which
AFAICS it currently does not).

-David