[cdt-dev] CDT ChangeLogs and the ChangeLog plug-in

[Phil Muldoon <pmuldoon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all.


You may recall a couple weeks ago, Rick from Red Hat mentioned donating
a ChangeLog plug-in to the CDT. I've been busy rewriting a lot of the
code to support different parsers (it supports at present C/C++ and
Java), but more importantly, different formatters. Both are contributed
via extension points.

At present, the only formatter present is the GNU Style formatter. This
formatter follows the rules here (to an extent):

http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Change-Logs.html#Change-Logs

The most relevant section is styles:

http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Style-of-Change-Logs.html#Style-of-Change-Logs

The ChangeLog plug-in works much like the EMACS or VI ChangeLog
functions in those editors. It's interactive, and in our case, hitting
Ctrl-Alt-C will invoke the ChangeLog plug-in. It will generate a
ChangeLog entry (entering the date first if needed), and compile
ChangeLogs much like the gnu examples above (as it uses the GNU Style
Formatter).

I did notice that the CDT does not use the GNU Style, so I would like to
write a CDT style formatter. It should not be too difficult as it looks
quite a bit like the GNU style. My question is, do you have a style
document for your type of ChangeLogs? I can put together a Formatter by
just looking at the CDT ChangeLogs over time, and working out the rules
in that respect.

I have the current ChangeLog in "beta" format, and it is usable. Is
there any interest for people giving it a test, or making suggestions?
On the current TODO list it to make it work in the Compare Editor (Team
based diffs etc), and allowing multiple entries from multiple file
selections in the Project Navigator. Are there any other features that
would be desirable? How do you compile ChangeLog's at present? Any and
all comments are welcomed!

Regards

Phil Muldoon
Red Hat, Inc.