dpkg-mergechangelogs(1) 					    dpkg suite						   dpkg-mergechangelogs(1)

NAME

       dpkg-mergechangelogs - 3-way merge of debian/changelog files

SYNOPSIS

       dpkg-mergechangelogs [option...] old new-a new-b [out]

DESCRIPTION

       This  program  will  use  the  3  provided versions of the Debian changelog to generate a merged changelog file. The resulting changelog is
       stored in the file out or output to the standard output if that parameter is not given.

       Each entry is identified by its version number and they are assumed to be not conflicting, they are simply merged in the  right	order  (by
       decreasing  version  number).  When  --merge-prereleases  is  used,  the part of the version number after the last tilde is dropped so that
       1.0-1~exp1 and 1.0-1~exp5 are considered to be the same entry. When the same version is available in both new-a and new-b, a standard line-
       based  3-way merge is attempted (provided that the module Algorithm::Merge is available -- it's part of the package libalgorithm-merge-perl
       -- otherwise you get a global conflict on the content of the entry).

OPTIONS

       --merge-prereleases, -m
	      Drop the part after the last tilde in the version number when doing version comparison to identify if two entries are supposed to be
	      the same or not.

	      This  is	useful when you keep using the same changelog entry but you increase its version number regularly. For instance, you might
	      have 2.3-1~exp1, 2.3-1~exp2, ... until the official release 2.3-1 and they are all the same changelog entry that	has  evolved  over
	      time.

       --help Show the usage message and exit.

       --version
	      Show the version and exit.

LIMITATIONS

       Anything  that is not parsed by Dpkg::Changelog is lost during the merge.  This might include stuff like vim modelines, comments which were
       not supposed to be there, etc.

INTEGRATION WITH GIT

       If you want to use this program to merge Debian changelog files in a git repository, you have first to  register  a  new  merge	driver	in
       .git/config or ~/.gitconfig:

	[merge "dpkg-mergechangelogs"]
	    name = debian/changelog merge driver
	    driver = dpkg-mergechangelogs -m %O %A %B %A

       Then  you  have	to  setup  the	merge  attribute  for  the  debian/changelog file either in .gitattributes in the repository itself, or in
       .git/info/attributes:

	debian/changelog merge=dpkg-mergechangelogs

Debian Project							    2011-08-14						   dpkg-mergechangelogs(1)