kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/31/2011 7:00 PM, Andy Peters wrote:
> On Aug 31, 2011, at 1:26 PM, Fred Cooke wrote:
> 
>> While we're on the subject of file formats, PLEASE, stop updating time
>> stamps in the header/comment when NOTHING else has changed. I can show you
>> commits to hw repositories with 30 eroneous files commited and only two
>> containing actual changes. The developer could have reviewed the changes
>> before committing, BUT, I'd argue that hardware devs are doing well to be
>> using version control at all, and I'd also argue that the level of
>> discipline required to not do such commits is above and beyond the call of
>> duty. This really amounts to a quite subtle (if you're not using version
>> control on your hardware designs) bad behaviour on KiCAD's part. Is there
>> any chance of rectifying it? To do it properly from a hw designers point of
>> view amounts to diffing all changed files, adding those with real changes to
>> the cache (if git), checking out the ones that have no real changes in them,
>> then committing. To go back and find the best place to fork a hardware
>> design where this has been done on every commit is an utter nightmare. It
>> also implies that saving the project does not keep track of which files have
>> been edited and which have not. That seems a little dirty, don't you guys
>> think? I'd be up for taking a crack at fixing it, but someone with intimate
>> knowledge of the KiCAD source would likely do it in 1/10 the time. Thoughts?
>> Time to promote good practice in version control for the hardware designers
>> on your team? :-)
> 
> I will just chime in and say, "Amen!" I can think of a half-dozen different electronics-design packages that have time stamps that are the only things in the design that change (perhaps as the result of a compile) and those changes are bogus. It's easy enough to revert them in Subversion, but they shouldn't have changed at all in the first place.
> 
> -a
> 

The goal is to do away with time stamps in the new file format.  However, that
is a long way off.  As to why existing times stamps are getting changed I
cannot say.  JP may be able to answer that question.  I do know that there was
a bug where duplicate time stamps could be generated.  The patch that fixed the
duplicate time stamp bug also looks for duplicate time stamps in existing files
and replaces them as required.  It may be possible that is what you are
experiencing.

Wayne