Subject: bug#12946: 23.2; log-edit-insert-changelog not inserting a description line from ChangeLog file

From: Glenn Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:30:50 -0500

Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

>    2012-11-16  Alfred M. Szmidt  <[email-masked]>
>
> 	This is a deccription line.
>
> 	* random-file: New file.

If you don't use a blank line between the two, you get

This is a description line.
* random-file: New file.

in the log buffer, which seems fine to me. You can easily kill all but
the first line if you don't want it.

http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Style-of-Change-Logs.html#Style-of-Change-Logs

says not to put blank lines between related entries (essentially, IMO).
(Maybe it should be updated for the practise of adding a leading summary.)

>   * random-file: New file.
>
> What would be useful is that you got the description line inserted
> instead, with nothing following it.  This is common practise when
> working with various distributed version control systems where the
> commit entry only contains a brief description of the change, and the
> ChangeLog contains the detailed information.

Really? I got the impression the trend was to generate ChangeLogs from
commit logs.