|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|
|
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CHANGELOG FORMATS | NOTES | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
|
|
|
dpkg-parsechangelog(1) dpkg suite dpkg-parsechangelog(1)
dpkg-parsechangelog - parse Debian changelog files
dpkg-parsechangelog [option...]
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.
-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, for example 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
stanza in Debian control format (see deb-control(5)). If more
than one entry is requested, then most fields are taken from
the first entry (usually the most recent entry), except
otherwise stated:
Source: pkg-name
The source package name.
Version: version
The source version number. Note: For binary-only releases
there might be no corresponding source release.
Distribution: target-distribution
A space-separated list of one or more distribution names
where this version should be installed when it is
uploaded.
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
The name and email address of the person who prepared
these changes, they are not necessarily those of the
uploader or the usual package maintainer.
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
stanza for each changelog entry so that all metadata for each
entry is preserved.
--reverse
Include all changes in reverse order (since dpkg 1.19.1).
Note: For the dpkg format the first entry will be the most
ancient entry.
--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).
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 lowercase
alphanumerics (“a-z0-9”).
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.
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.
DPKG_COLORS
Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5). The currently
accepted values are: auto (default), always and never.
DPKG_NLS
If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native
Language Support, also known as internationalization (or i18n)
support (since dpkg 1.19.0). The accepted values are: 0 and 1
(default).
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.
The Maintainer field has a confusing name matching the field in
the debian/control file but not its exact semantics, where its
meaning would be better represented by the Changed-By field name
used in the .changes file.
deb-changelog(5).
This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see
⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩. This
page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨git
clone https://git.dpkg.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2025-08-06.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
1.22.6-77-g86fe7 2024-03-10 dpkg-parsechangelog(1)
Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-genbuildinfo(1), dpkg-genchanges(1), dpkg-gencontrol(1), dpkg-source(1), deb-changelog(5), deb-src-rules(5)
|
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
|