Re: [Avogadro-devel] Automatic Generation of ChangeLog

[Marcus D. H. <ma...@cr...>]

Geoffrey Hutchison wrote:
>> Below is an excerpt that I generated today using a combination of git
>> log and a Python script I just wrote. It looks pretty good to me and
>> going forward I think it is the way to go. Opinions? It can be  
>> generated
>> over ranges too, which would make a what's new in 0.9 easier to  
>> compile.
>>     
>
> I think the best thing we can do is "reflow" the commit messages. I'd  
> take the raw commit message and remove any line breaks.
>
> Doing a bit of searching turned up the "textwrap" module in Python:
> http://docs.python.org/library/textwrap.html
>   
I am not sure I know what you mean by reflow. I am already setting the
width of the lines if that is what you mean. It is just that I set it to
80 characters (which is standard in terminals/coding) and the mail
client did 78 or something. That is an easy parameter to adjust in the
script I wrote too - it is just over 100 lines with comments.

I have always found the GNU ChangeLog format quite useful in getting a
feel for what changed over longer periods of time. Day to day there are
RSS feeds and the git log command.
> Personally, while we can tar up a git directory (or grab from GitHub),  
> I think it would be good to add a Makefile target which can run  
> scripts like this, remove *.disabled, etc.
>   
Wouldn't that be more suited to a script in our scripts repository?
> Otherwise this is a great idea. I run into conflicts merging with Open  
> Babel all the time. I also just removed ChangeLog from my local  
> Avogadro git repo.
>
> Thanks for doing this Marcus
>   
It had been bugging me for a while due to conflicts, duplicating
entries, the fact that the VCS coupled with a script or two should be
able to do a better job anyway... If your main concern is the width of
the lines then that is no problem. The main missing feature is the lack
of +/- in front of files that are added or removed.

I will add the Python script to the scripts repository. It may be ugly
and suboptimal as this is the first time I ever tried writing a Python
script that was more than ten lines long... It does get the job done
though... There are other styles of ChangeLog too, and the fact that
most normal users are more interested in a much more concise
ChangeLog/what's new since style entry.

I find git log --no-merges and git log -p --no-merges very useful too.
So I guess in many ways it is a case of deciding why the ChangeLog is
there and who it is aimed at. I am sure that this script (or a modified
form of it) will prove useful in making ChangeLogs if it is still useful
to provide them with our releases.

Thanks,

Marcus