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)
Check Out this Related Man Page
dpkg-parsechangelog(1) dpkg suite dpkg-parsechangelog(1)NAME
dpkg-parsechangelog - parse Debian changelog files
SYNOPSIS
dpkg-parsechangelog [option...]
DESCRIPTION
dpkg-parsechangelog reads and parses the changelog of an unpacked Debian source tree and outputs the information in it to standard output
in a machine-readable form.
OPTIONS -l, --file changelog-file
Specifies the changelog file to read information from. A '-' can be used to specify reading from standard input. The default is
debian/changelog.
-F changelog-format
Specifies the format of the changelog. By default the format is read from a special line near the bottom of the changelog or failing
that defaults to the debian standard format. See also CHANGELOG FORMATS.
-L libdir
Obsolete option without effect (since dpkg 1.18.8). Setting the perl environment variables PERL5LIB or PERLLIB has a similar effect
when looking for the parser perl modules.
-S, --show-field field
Specifies the name of the field to show (since dpkg 1.17.0). The field name is not printed, only its value.
-?, --help
Show the usage message and exit.
--version
Show the version and exit.
Parser Options
The following options can be used to influence the output of the changelog parser, e.g. the range of entries or the format of the output.
--format output-format
Set the output format. Currently supported values are dpkg and rfc822. dpkg is the classic output format (from before this option
existed) and the default. It consists of one paragraph in Debian control format (see deb-control(5)). If more than one entry is
requested, then most fields are taken from the most recent entry, except otherwise stated:
Source: pkg-name
Version: version
Distribution: target-distribution
Urgency: urgency
The highest urgency of all included entries is used, followed by the concatenated (space-separated) comments from all the
versions requested.
Maintainer: author
Date: date
The date of the entry as a string, as it appears in the changelog. With a strptime(3) format "%a, %d %b %Y %T %z", but where
the day of the week might not actually correspond to the real day obtained from the rest of the date string. If you need a
more accurate representation of the date, use the Timestamp field, but take into account it might not be possible to map it
back to the exact value in this field.
Timestamp: timestamp
The date of the entry as a timestamp in seconds since the epoch (since dpkg 1.18.8).
Closes: bug-number
The Closes fields of all included entries are merged.
Changes: changelog-entries
The text of all changelog entries is concatenated. To make this field a valid Debian control format multiline field empty
lines are replaced with a single full stop and all lines is intended by one space character. The exact content depends on the
changelog format.
The Version, Distribution, Urgency, Maintainer and Changes fields are mandatory.
There might be additional user-defined fields present.
The rfc822 format uses the same fields but outputs a separate paragraph for each changelog entry so that all metadata for each entry
is preserved.
--all Include all changes. Note: other options have no effect when this is in use.
-s, --since version
-v version
Include all changes later than version.
-u, --until version
Include all changes earlier than version.
-f, --from version
Include all changes equal or later than version.
-t, --to version
Include all changes up to or equal than version.
-c, --count number
-n number
Include number entries from the top (or the tail if number is lower than 0).
-o, --offset number
Change the starting point for --count, counted from the top (or the tail if number is lower than 0).
CHANGELOG FORMATS
It is possible to use a different format to the standard one, by providing a parser for that alternative format.
In order to have dpkg-parsechangelog run the new parser, a line must be included within the last 40 lines of the changelog file, matching
the Perl regular expression: "schangelog-format:s+([0-9a-z]+)W". The part in parentheses should be the name of the format. For example:
@@@ changelog-format: otherformat @@@
Changelog format names are non-empty strings of alphanumerics.
If such a line exists then dpkg-parsechangelog will look for the parser as a Dpkg::Changelog::Otherformat perl module; it is an error for
it not being present. The parser name in the perl module will be automatically capitalized. The default changelog format is debian, and a
parser for it is provided by default.
The parser should be derived from the Dpkg::Changelog class and implement the required documented interface.
If the changelog format which is being parsed always or almost always leaves a blank line between individual change notes, these blank
lines should be stripped out, so as to make the resulting output compact.
If the changelog format does not contain date or package name information this information should be omitted from the output. The parser
should not attempt to synthesize it or find it from other sources.
If the changelog does not have the expected format the parser should error out, rather than trying to muddle through and possibly
generating incorrect output.
A changelog parser may not interact with the user at all.
NOTES
All Parser Options except for -v are only supported since dpkg 1.14.16.
Short option parsing with non-bundled values available only since dpkg 1.18.0.
FILES
debian/changelog
The changelog file, used to obtain version-dependent information about the source package, such as the urgency and distribution of
an upload, the changes made since a particular release, and the source version number itself.
SEE ALSO deb-changelog(5).
1.19.0.5 2018-04-16 dpkg-parsechangelog(1)