Re: Script to generate ChangeLogs automatically

[Joseph Myers]

On Thu, 29 Nov 2018, Richard Stallman wrote:

> The issue that remains is that it is sometimes necessary to find which
> commits changed some specific entity in the code.  The current format
> of change logging gives a way to do that.  The issue is how to arrange
> to do that if we no longer itemize the entities changed by each
> commit.

My view is:

1. Yes, this is the correct issue to look at - mapping from an entity to 
the commits that changed it, as opposed to the inverse problem of mapping 
from a commit to the entities it changed.

2. Once you're looking at a particular entity, it becomes much less 
important to have a uniform, fully automated way of listing the relevant 
commits, as long as it's clear to a person (familiar with the version 
control system in use by the project) in each case how to find the commits 
for that entity.  And so tools such as "git blame" and "git log -L", where 
you examine the code, run a command based on the form the entity in 
question takes, and possibly then run other variant commands depending on 
the results from the first command, are entirely suitable for the problem 
of mapping from entities to commits that changed them.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
address@hidden