Re: Introducing a semantic changelog XML notation

On 11.03.2020 at 09:33, Giovanni Giacobbi wrote: > I recently did my first contribution to the phpdocs, it was a missing > changelog entry for mb_convert_case(). For the first time I saw the syntax > of the XML files and I had the immediate feeling a semantic <changelog> XML > construct is missing. > > Given the importance of the changelog (as full time PHP developer I consult > the "Changelog" section of the manual pages A LOT) I believe it deserves > its own XML tag instead of using <informaltable>. > > I was thinking about something like (a very random idea, not thought > through yet): > > <changelog> > <row> > <version>7.3.0</version> > <entry>Changed this and that.</entry> > </row> > </changelog> > > Do you think this kind of change would be accepted? Has this been discussed > before? > It would be quite some work to introduce the new markup and create a > migration script for the existing documentation, so I'm looking for > preliminary feedback before venturing into this. Thanks for bringing this up! Before going further, it is important to know that the PHP manual conforms to DocBook[1] (currently version 4.5) which defines a rather strict XML schema to which we would have to adhere. Since it doesn't define a <changelog> element, we can't invent one. Still, there may be room for improvement regarding the changelogs. I wonder whether a table is really suitable; to me, some kind of list would make more sense. Thanks, Christoph [1] <https://docbook.org/>