[MPlayer-cvslog] r29161 - trunk/stream/tvi_v4l2.c

[Uoti Urpala]

On Fri, 2009-04-10 at 12:13 +0200, reimar wrote:
> Log:
> Reset the value of i so it is obvious from the output when we could not read the
> current input setting.

I think this is quite a bad commit message, and this kind of error
really should be avoidable. Commit messages should first answer the
general question "What is this change about?" without assuming more
context than being a commit of project X. I think a reasonable rule of
thumb is that the first sentence (subject line) should contain the same
information as an answer to the question "what kind of commit did you do
last?", though not necessarily formatted exactly as an answer. If
someone asked you that, you certainly wouldn't start your answer with
"Reset the value of i...".

An example of a better message could be

"""
tvi_v4l2: Print -1 instead of a meaningless number in one error case

The "Current input" value shown was meaningless if the ioctl call to
read it failed. Print -1 instead to make it clear it's not a valid
value.
"""


This starts with the most relevant information - that it affects
tvi_v4l2, and printed output in that. Possibly the body of the message
could be omitted and only the subject line used, depending on whether
you expect anyone to really care about this change.