Message log suggestion

[Steven Don]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate list to send this to, but it 
seemed the closest match.

Anyway, I read in the FAQ about the problems with the $Log$ keyword 
substitution. I'd like to mention another problem and suggest an 
alternate solution.

The problem is that old log messages (before the $Log$ keyword was 
put into the source file aren't shown). There's not much the user can 

do to fix this, I think, except adding everything manually or by 
taking my suggestion.

So, my suggestion is to add a new keyword (or rather: a keyword 
pair), say like this:

$LogBegin$
$LogEnd$

When committing, everything between those should be ignored. When 
checking out or updating a file, *all* log messages should appear 
between the two. This automatically also fixes the point raised in 
12.5 of the Cederqvist: people changing spelling in log messages etc.

So if I put the following in my C code:

/*
Changelog:
$LogBegin$
$LogEnd$
*/

I'll always have a list of the log messages as they are in the 
repository.

There is of course the risk that people might omit the $LogEnd$ 
keyword, but that should be easy enough to detect and issue a 
warning. In case of a newly added file it could even be added 
automatically.

Is this a useable idea or am I missing something?

Regards,
  Steven Don