Stefano Zacchiroli <z...@debian.org> writes: > Hi all, sorry for the late reply.
I see your late reply and raise you 9 years or so. > On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 09:03:22PM +0100, Luca Capello wrote: >> > I unfinalize to add something, but finalize using distribution UNRELEASED >> > to save the work in CVS. I only set the distribution to unstable when >> > ready for an actual upload. Aside from the terminalogy of "finalization", which seems to be specific to debian-changelog-mode, I'd say that's now a (the?) standard workflow. >> >> 2) unfinalized entries are not properly parseable by >> >> dpkg-parsechangelog (which indeed complains) and strictly speacking >> >> do not adhere to the debian/changelog syntax >> >> As Stefano already knows, I disagree here: IMHO, since we are talking >> about a working version, there is no "real" debian/changelog. > > Fair enough, we disagree on that. I don't ever want a package to be in a state where dpkg-buildpackage cannot build it. I understand that I could use ./debian/rules build etc..., but I don't want to be be forced to do it. This means that I don't ever want my changelogs to be in the state debian-changelog-mode calls "unfinalized". >> >> - keep author name / timestamp after -- and use "UNRELEASED" as the >> >> distribution for unfinalized changelog entries. Also, do not touch >> >> the timestamp until an entry is finalized (which avoids useless VCS >> >> commit diffs) >> I disagree on the second part of this solution: if an entry must be >> finalized, then the timestamp should reflect it. Yes, this brings >> useless VCS commit diffs, but I really think that if the timestamp would >> not be updated, then there is no difference between having an entry >> finalized or not. > > Fair enough, I've no strong opinion on this. > Still, if this gets implemented, it would make sense to have this > detail customizable. I tend to agree that the timestamp doesn't need to change with every tweak to the changelog. What matters is the timestamp in the uploaded package. But I also think that "unfinalizing" and "finalizing" the changelog is mostly busywork for me. > >> >> - upon finalization: fix UNRELEASED and update the timestamp >> IIRC lintian should whine if distributions is UNRELEASED. > > It does, but the proposal still stands. Lintian no long whines about this. dput-ng does check for uploads to UNRELEASED. dch creates new entries as UNRELEASED (well, at least with DEBCHANGE_RELEASE_HEURISTIC=changelog). So I guess I generally support Stefano's proposal, or at least the meta-proposal to make debian-changelog-mode more like dch. The idea of finalization is fairly pervasive in debian-changelog-mode.el, I don't know how easy it would be to maintain two different ideas of finalized: either the missing-timestamp kind or the UNRELEASED distribution. For my own use it would be tempting to just rip out all of the code related to finalization, but I don't know how many people find it useful, rather than something to be worked around. d
