[Savannah-hackers-public] Re: converting gnulib: cvs to git

[Jim Meyering]

Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> wrote:
> Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:
>> Does anyone object to my removing the $Id...$ strings from those files?
>> They will serve no purpose once we migrate.
>
> I'd rather not remove them as long as we are using CVS as the master
> repository.
>
> Once, or if, we make the switch to something else, we should replace
> them with git's equivalent tags (how do they look and behave?).  I
> find these markers useful when comparing file dates when updating old
> software, and I think it would be a clear disadvantage if moving to
> git won't make the same thing possible.

Hi Simon,

Do you really care whether any of the following files (the only ones
affected in gnulib) contain an CVS/RCS-style $Id...$ string?

   COPYING
   config/srclist-update
   config/srclist.txt
   config/srclistvars.sh
   doc/Makefile
   doc/gnulib.texi
   gnulib-tool

Personally, I've learned that it pays to remove them.
If you ever have to deal with branching and merging with cvs,
the expanded strings can be a common source of merge conflicts
and rejected patches.

FYI, git does not provide a keyword substitution mechanism, and
while that makes it a little harder to embed automatic version-dependent
version strings in scripts, I think it's worth the inconvenience.