On automated commits

[Alan Modra]

On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 09:23:20AM -0400, Paul Koning wrote:
> 
> 
> > On Jun 26, 2024, at 9:32 PM, Alan Modra <amodra@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 11:17:04AM -0700, Joel Brobecker wrote:
> >>> I personally have never liked these automated commits, and I can't
> >>> recall ever using the date they provide.
> >>> 
> >>> I also don't believe these dates are used here at AdaCore.
> >>> 
> >>> So +1 from me for removing these.
> >> 
> >> Same here.
> >> 
> >> I know that some people found them useful, but I don't remember why
> >> unfortunately.
> > 
> > The date is useful when looking at bug reports from people who might
> > be building from development sources.  
> 
> So why not have the build procedure pick up the last commit date, if building in a Git sandbox?  That's easy enough to arrange.  Similarly, it could pick up the identifier (SHA hash) of that last commit to make it entirely unambiguous.

I wasn't saying the way we do things now is the only way, just
explaining why the date is useful.  "git show -s --oneline @{u}" or
similar would be good too, but let's make sure we report upstream
commits not local ones.

-- 
Alan Modra