Remove old CVS log information (?)

[marq]

This is more of a reminder - or a question.

We currently still have the old CVS log entries in the source code files. The Log keyword isn't support by subversion (for some reason) - shouldn't we therefore abandon them altogether? Otherwise, users get outdated (and possibly inconsistent) information from the old messages. I'll remove the old MODIFICATION HISTORY sections of the source code headers in those files that I have written myself whenever I run into them, but I don't like to do that in, e.g., Dave's programs.

Maybe this should be cleaned up before beta? In that case, someone needs to go through the code and do some cleanup work...

[Dave Offiler]

I agree; the cvs logs history is now just that - history - and therefore not of much use. I had though of continuing to (manually) enter log history using basically the same text one would enter for svn commits, but this would have to be done consistently by everyone. So I haven't, except for the code I wrote in the first place. A real shame that svn doesn't have this feature, as in-line documentation is optimal.

As long as there is an accessible log somewhere of why a source code (or other file) was changed, the version diffs *should* say *what* was changed. If this is not (automatically) in the file itself, then OK.

Given the above, I would not object if (at low priority) ALL the modification histories were eventually removed. As a personal preference for my own code, when releasing a new major version, I always re-started the history from scratch from that new baseline - so ROPP-1.0, as a baseline release, need have no (external-user-visible) history at all.

[marq]

Have you ever tried to run svn log on a particular file (or on everything)? It gives a reasonable output, I think... If you are interested in something like a GNU ChangeLog for the entire package, for example, ​svn2cl might be the right tool when you need something in a text file. You would have to modify the shell script in that package to get a file-by-file listing of the applicable changes. And you could change the xsl style sheet to change the formatting of the output. You can, of course, always use the source browser of TRAC to get a history of a particular file.

Could you do me a favour? There's no need to change the cc: field each time; I do get copies of all tickets anyway. I have started to put Axel's and your email address into each ticket when they aren't there yet to make sure both of you get a copy as well. If you are adding new ones, it would be nice if you could add your email address(es) right from the start.

Chris.

[Dave Offiler]

I've installed svn2cl in sa_app...

$ svn2cl --include-rev --group-by-day

gives an adequate ChangeLog (enough to satisfy EUMETSAT, anyway). Perhaps this command should be executed as part of the 'make dist' and ChangeLog included in the dist?

As always, 'svn update' should be done first.

[OK, I'll leave the cc: list alone except for new tickets]

[Dave Offiler]

All "MODIFICATION HISTORY" comment blocks removed - [984]

[Except for bufr2ropp & ropp2bufr since these have more than one routine per source file and the history per routine is useful (to me). If I get around to splitting these into separate source files, the MODHIST will be junked (the history will anyway be wiped clean in release of ROPP-1 as this is the (new) baseline].

svn2cl has been implemented in all the module makefiles in the 'make dist' in order to (re-)make the module's ChangeLog file.

[(none)]

Milestone 0.9 deleted