Re: Update on the branch surgery

[Ethan A M. <sf...@us...>]

On Thursday, October 26, 2017 9:50:20 AM PDT Daniel J Sebald wrote:

> > The incorrect date comes from a typo in the ChangeLog.
> > 
> >    https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/git-main/ci/50bc9c8abfd499a56717cc
> >    f324434bdc675e2bea/> 
> > Note, however, that typo is not present in the main branch copy of
> > ChangeLog (actually ChangeLog.1) because it was later corrected.  That
> > leads me to wonder which era of the ChangeLog text you guys are mining
> > to assign dates during the git conversion.
> 
> We aren't using any changelog file.  What we are looking at is the
> *changes* to ChangeLog as they are associated with the changes in other
> files.  That is, every time something was checked into CVS there was
> always a small change to the ChangeLog file as well.  That trail
> contains the most information.  So, if there was a typo in the ChangeLog
> entry for a particular checkin, that mistaken date ends up in the git
> changeset.
> 
> It's not possible to look at a whole ChangeLog file and infer dates and
> times about myriad checkins because that ChangeLog was constructed in a
> piecemeal fashion, placing an item under some entry days prior, editing
> some past entry, placing a new entry before other entries rather than
> the top of the file, etc.
> 
> The typo explains the date discrepancy (thanks).  There's going to be a
> few of those.  After the fact we can attempt a simple rebase/correct and
> if it works, fine, if not just live with those sorts of issues.  That's
> the minor concern aside from getting the graft points correct.
> 
> Dan

Huh.
On the one hand, that makes sense.
On the other hand there must also be a CVS check-in date for that change.
Why would you trust the text field in the ChangeLog more than the
check-in date?

	(sorry if you've already gone over this in previous mail,
	 I have not tried to follow the detailed discussion)

		Ethan