parsechangelog - parse Debian changelogs and output them in other formats

parsechangelog [options] [changelogfile]

 Options:
    --help, -h                  print usage information
    --version, -V               print version information
    --file, -l <file>           changelog file to parse, defaults
                                to 'debian/changelog'
    -F<changelogformat>         ignored if changelogformat = 'debian'
                                for compatibility with dpkg-dev
    -L<libdir>                  ignored for compatibility with dpkg-dev
    --format <outputformat>     see man page for list of available
                                output formats, defaults to 'dpkg'
                                for compatibility with dpkg-dev
    --since, -s, -v <version>   include all changes later than version
    --until, -u <version>       include all changes earlier than version
    --from, -f <version>        include all changes equal or later
                                than version
    --to, -t <version>          include all changes up to or equal
                                than version
    --count, -c, -n <number>    include <number> entries from the top
                                (or the tail if <number> is lower than 0)
    --offset, -o <number>       change the starting point for --count,
                                counted from the top (or the tail if
                                <number> is lower than 0)
    --all                       include all changes

If neither CWchangelogfile nor CW-l <file> are specified, debian/changelog will be used. If two different files are specified the program will abort.

If the filename is CW- the program reads the changelog from standard input.

CW--all overrides all other range selecting options. CW--count overrides all other range selection options except for CW--all. The range selecting options can be mixed together, but only one of CW--since and CW--from and one of CW--until and CW--to can be specified at the same time.

The dpkg and rfc822 formats default to showing only the first entry when no other options are given with while the HTML and XML formats default to showing all entries.

For a more extensive documentation of the range selecting options and some (hopefully enlightening) examples see COMMON OUTPUT OPTIONS in Parse::DebianChangelog.

parsechangelog parses Debian changelogs as described in the Debian policy (version 3.6.2.1 at the time of this writing) and converts them to other output formats. See section SEE ALSO for locations where to find the full format definition.

The output formats supported are currently:

dpkg

Format as known from dpkg-parsechangelog(1). All requested entries (see SYNOPSIS on how to select specific entries) are returned in the usual Debian control format, merged in one stanza, ready to be used in a .changes file.

rfc822

Similar to the CWdpkg format, but the requested entries are returned as one stanza each, i.e. they are not merged. This is probably the format to use if you want a machine-usable representation of the changelog.

xml

Just a simple XML dump of the changelog data. Without any schema or DTD currently, just some made up XML. The actual format might still change. Comments and Improvements welcome.

html

The changelog is converted to a somewhat nice looking HTML file with some nice features as a quick-link bar with direct links to every entry. NOTE: This is not configurable yet and was specifically designed to be used on <http://packages.debian.org/>. This is planned to be changed until version 1.0. The used Parse::DebianChangelog module already supports configuration, however, this isn't exposed by this program yet.

Parse::DebianChangelog, the underlying Perl module

Description of the Debian changelog format in the Debian policy: <http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#s-dpkgchangelog>.

Frank Lichtenheld, <frank@lichtenheld.de>

Copyright (C) 2005 by Frank Lichtenheld

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA