Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 1/3] Target-microblaze: Remove unnecessary variable

[Peter Maydell]

On 5 October 2015 at 08:18, Michael Tokarev <address@hidden> wrote:
> 05.10.2015 08:18, Markus Armbruster wrote:
>> Why?  I like having the semantic patch in the commit message when
>> there's any chance we'll want do the same mechanical change again later.
>>
>> You could save space and include it by reference, though: "Same
>> Coccinelle semantic patch as is commit 74c373e".
>
> git commit messages aren't good documentation for various scripts
> like this, this info will be lost in the noize.  If it might be
> better to keep such scripts in a separate file where it is easier
> to find, or in a wiki page on the site. The key point is where to
> find the info, git log is difficult for that, especially when you
> don't know what to search for or that such a script exists in
> there in the first place.
>
> On the other hand, when git log is cluttered by such a long messages
> for such small changes, it becomes more difficult to find info which
> you really look in git log -- namely, which changes were made that
> might have introduced this regression, things like that.

I think it can be useful when you're looking at a commit
to know that it was automatically created, especially if
it's a big commit. It means that if you're looking for
a bug in it you can concentrate on the script that created
it rather than the possibly large set of changes it produced,
or if you're trying to cherry-pick it into another branch you
can just apply the script instead.

In a commit with a change this small it's not very significant
either way, though.

thanks
-- PMM