Re: dates in gnulib ChangeLog entries

[jas]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:

> I noticed that recent changes (merging from gettext, for example)
> added many ChangeLog entries whose dates disagree with when the change
> was installed into gnulib.  Hence gnulib's ChangeLog file appears not
> to be in reverse chronological order.  This confused me.
>
> When I merge changes from coreutils, I use the style indicated below,
> which preserves the date of the original change, while also making it
> clear when the change was merged into gnulib.  This makes the gnulib
> changelog easier to read, at least for me.
>
> Any objection if I do something similar for the gettext etc. ChangeLog
> entries in gnulib?

Emacs doesn't highlight this new format well.  Care to bring this idea
up on, e.g., emacs-devel?  Perhaps RMS or someone has opinions on the
style, and whether Emacs should color this style appropriately.

This problem is not new, FYI, in XEmacs I've used a style that adds a
changelog entry that says something like:

2006-07-28  Simon Josefsson  <address@hidden>

        * Sync smtpmail.el.  ChangeLog entries until 2006-01-25 below.

And the original ChangeLog entries are added, with their original
date, in the normal tab column.

IIRC, ChangeLogs are discussed in the GNU Standards document.  Maybe
it should discuss this aspect too.

/Simon

> 2006-07-03  Paul Eggert  <address@hidden>
>
>       Merge from coreutils.
>
>       2006-06-30  Paul Eggert  <address@hidden>
>
>       * xstrtod.c (XSTRTOD, DOUBLE): New macros, so that we can support
>       both double and long double versions.
>       (XSTRTOD): Renamed from xstrtod.  Use DOUBLE internally.
>       * xstrtold.c: New file.
>       * xstrtod.h (xstrtold): New decl.
>
>       2006-05-22  Paul Eggert  <address@hidden>
>
>       * filemode.c (setst): Remove.
>       (strmode): Rewrite to avoid setst.  This makes the code shorter,
>       (arguably) clearer, and the generated code is a bit smaller on my
>       Debian GNU/Linux stable x86 host.
>
>         ....