ERR: ChangeLog, DATESTAMP, BASE-VER and DEV-PHASE updates

[Martin Sebor]

On 7/13/20 8:21 AM, Martin Sebor wrote:
> Could someone explain what the following error means and how
> to avoid it?  It's for a commit to the 10 branch with the usual
> commit message format and changes to only .c/.C files (same as
> in r11-1899).  There's nothing more about the subject of the ERR
> at the link it points to than what it says.
> 
> remote: *** ChangeLog format failed:
> remote: ERR: ChangeLog, DATESTAMP, BASE-VER and DEV-PHASE updates should 
> be done separately from normal commits
> remote:
> remote: Please see: https://gcc.gnu.org/codingconventions.html#ChangeLogs
> remote:
> remote: error: hook declined to update refs/heads/releases/gcc-10
> To git+ssh://gcc.gnu.org/git/gcc.git

The cause of the error turned out to be that for some reason,
after a rebase, the diff I was trying to push also contained
upstream ChangeLog updates that I didn't scroll far enough in
the commit log to see.

I don't know if this happens often enough to make improving
the error worthwhile or if it was just my luck that I did
something silly this time, but mentioning the pathnames of
the changed ChangeLog, DATESTAMP, BASE-VER, and DEV-PHASE
files in the error message  found in the commit would help
avoid the confusion. E.g., something like:

   remote: Error: found one or more ChangeLog, DATESTAMP,
   BASE-VER or DEV-PHASE files in commit:
     ...list of pathnames of files...
   Updates to these files should be made separately from those
   to ordinary files.

Martin