[pacman-dev] [PATCH] Improve changelog handling through addition of open/read/close functions

[Xavier]

On Sun, Dec 09, 2007 at 11:15:54AM -0600, Dan McGee wrote:
> 
> Want to make a ChangeLog.proto to stick in contrib/ ? You could make a
> few sample changelog entries and make one of them state that the file
> should end with one blank line.
> 
> I tested with the glibc package (both package and installed in my
> local db) thus the reason I added the newline. :)
> 

I'm not sure how it should be formatted. I didn't even know there was a
changelog format. At least, there is one described in the gnu emacs manual :
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Format-of-ChangeLog.html

By following this style, I got nice colors in both vim and emacs ;)
I also saw Aaron followed a similar style for cmus changelog:

---------------------------------------------------
2007-10-29 Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin at gmail.com>
* 2.2.0-3
Removed arts support (FS#8341)
Added flac and libmad
---------------------------------------------------

Though it's missing a space or tab for the entry, and that seems to be
important, both in the emacs manual, and for vim/emacs syntax colors.
So here is my proposal for ChangeLog.proto :

---------------------------------------------------
2007-12-01 Your Name <youremail at domain.com>

	* 1.1-1
	new upstream release.
	change 1.
	change 2.

2007-11-01 Your Name <youremail at domain.com>

	* 1.0-5
	added ChangeLog.
	the last line should end with just one newline.
	you can cat the file to check it displays fine.
---------------------------------------------------

The name and email for each new release might look a bit repetitive, since
they will likely often be the same. But well, finally, I don't think it's a
big problem, it does happen that a package is edited by several devs.  And it
can also change maintainers.
And since this is apparently some sort of standard, it's probably not a bad
idea to follow it, at least for the prototype. People are then free to do
what they want.