Re: [RFE] Migration to gitlab

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 11.05.2019 13:02, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> Asking the contributors to fix the log messages works only up to some
> not very far limit.  Quite frequently, IME, the 2nd, the 3rd, and
> sometimes the 4th attempt are still not what I'd like to see, whether
> due to misunderstanding or something else.  At which point I usually
> give up and fix the rest myself, so as not to discourage the
> contributor the next time he/she wants to contribute.

Same here.

> So there should be an easy way of accepting a PR/MR where I can
> augment the log message in the process.  Because once the commit is
> pushed, whatever deficiencies there were in the log message are carved
> in stone forever.

There are basically two options:

If the MR only has a few commits (or just one, which might consititute 
the majority of them), you can "Merge with squashing" by clicking a 
checkbox: 
https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/squash_and_merge.html. 
The UI will let you edit the commit message for the squashed commit 
before it is merged.

That would probably require using the Web UI; a hypothetical Emacs-based 
client might also support that later, IDK.

The alternative option is always there: when you don't want to squash 
all commits together (say, the branch is long and big), you can, of 
course, fetch it, check it out locally, rebase (fixing all commit 
messages while doing that) and push. And close the MR manually (I think 
automatic detection will break in the presence of rebasing).

> > And yes, GitLab adds the reference to the issue, which commit or PR resolves 
> > this issue.
>
> What if the issue is not yet resolved, like when we commit a change
> that fixes only part of the issue, or is only tangentially related to
> it?  We cannot yet close the issue, but a reference to it should be in
> the commit log.

An issue reference doesn't have to close it. #123 is a reference. "Fixes 
#123" is an auto-closing reference. Some details here: 
https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/automatic_issue_closing.html

To sum up, we can create references to issues in commits (which the 
GitLab UI recognizes as references), *and* we can make commits close 
issues. In the latter case the issue notes will reference the commit 
that closed it automatically.

> > About adding the copyright/paperworks, there isn’t a default setting, but you 
> > can have a bot to do that. I’ve never used one myself, so I’m not sure, but 
> > I’ve seen lots of projects that use bots to get paperwork, etc...
>
> How can a bot do that, when a commit log message is immutable once the
> commit is pushed?

Is a commit message related to copyright/paperworks?