Is "non breaking change" a common term in revision control?

Question

Non breaking change is a term used to describe minor contributions which are supposed to not break anything and is abbreviated as NBC. Typical example include formatting a source file or adding a comment - it really, really should not break the build (of course there are always exceptional cases).

Is this a common term in revision control talk? I'm especially asking those familiar with RC systems. I use "NBC" on occasion but I never heard anyone else using it so I wondered...

(btw: Don't trust wikipedia as a source on this)

To explain a bit on why I believe this term is useful:

Help avoid looking at the wrong place
Using an autoformatter typically results in a lot of changed lines, making the diff between revisions useless. "NBC" in the changelog is a hint that there is no need to look at the diff of the change when searching for a change that broke something.

Answer 1

I've been in the SCM space for quite some time and have never heard or used that term in relation to revision control of source files or to changes, like comments/formatting, that wouldn't change the build output.

Typically I hear it in relation to changes to logic internal to built component but that are (theoretically at least) interface and functionally compatible with the rest of a system.

Answer 2

I have heard the term most frequently in terms of API or interface-based programming. In other words, something changed underneath but the public interface is the same or the "old" way of doing things is still supported.

So, no, I wouldn't normally think of this in terms of an RCS. For revision control, the diff tells you what changed. Furthermore, depending upon the intelligence of your diff tools, a reformat would show as a change on every line of code which makes the diff completely unreadable.

To your specific case, what is the motivation? Is this a response to a broken build? I.e. you check in, the build breaks, and your response is "well, my change was non-breaking, so it must not have been me"?

Answer 3

"Feature safe" is sometimes used in fBSD for commits made shortly before a code freeze.