2.2 Initializing vc-dwim

vc-dwim operates based on a ChangeLog file; if you maintain a ChangeLog as part of your source tree, you don’t need to do anything special to set up to use vc-dwim; just run it.

However, it is common practice nowadays for source trees not to have ChangeLog files, but instead to have them derived for distributions or on demand (make ChangeLog, with one common GNU infrastructure). So, how to use vc-dwim in this case? It still needs a ChangeLog.

The answer is to run vc-dwim --initialize. This sets up your own, private ChangeLog file in a git repository rooted at VCDIR/c/, with a symlink to it from the top level directory of the source tree in which you’d like to use vc-dwim.

Your own source tree need not use git; VCDIR in the above refers to the version-control system’s control directory, such as .svn, _darcs, etc., as well as .git. The VCDIR/c/.git repository is always independent of your own source tree.

Then you can make ChangeLog entries as usual, and proceed with use of vc-dwim.

You can also set up your own repository of whatever type and make your own symlinked top-level ChangeLog into it; there’s nothing magical about --initialize or the VCDIR/c/ location.