NAME¶
apt-listchanges — Show new changelog entries from Debian package archives
SYNOPSIS¶
apt-listchanges [
options ... ] {
--apt |
package.deb
... }
DESCRIPTION¶
apt-listchanges is a tool to show what has been changed in a new version
of a Debian package, as compared to the version currently installed on the
system.
It does this by extracting the relevant entries from both the NEWS.Debian and
changelog[.Debian] files, usually found in
/usr/share/doc/package, from Debian package archives.
Given a set of filenames as arguments (or read from apt when using
--apt),
apt-listchanges will scan the files (assumed to be
Debian package archives) for the relevant changelog entries, and display them
all in a summary, sorted by urgency.
OPTIONS¶
- --apt
- Read filenames from a specially-formatted pipeline (as provided by apt),
rather than from command line arguments, and honor certain apt-specific
options in the config file. This pipeline must be in "version 2"
format, specified in the apt configuration.
- -v, --verbose
- Display additional (usually unwanted) information. For instance, print a
message when a package of the same or older version is to be installed, or
when a package is to be newly installed.
- -f, --frontend
- Select which frontend to use to display information to the user. Current
frontends include:
- pager
- Uses your favorite pager to display output. By default, the PAGER
environment variable will be used. The "pager" option may be
specified in the configuration file to select a specific pager for use
with apt-listchanges.
- browser
- Displays an HTML-formatted changelog using a web browser, with hyperlinks
for bugs and email addresses. By default, the BROWSER environment variable
will be used. The "browser" option may be specified in the
configuration file to select a specific browser for use with
apt-listchanges.
- xterm-pager
- Uses your favorite pager to display output, but does so in an xterm (using
the x-terminal-emulator alternative) in the background. This allows you to
go on with the upgrade if you like, and continue to browse the changelogs.
You can override the terminal emulator to be used with the
"xterm" configuration option.
- xterm-browser
- The logical combination of xterm-pager and browser. Only appropriate for
text-mode browsers.
- text
- Dumps output to stdout, with no pauses.
- mail
- Sends mail to the address specified with --email-address, and does not
display changelogs.
- gtk
- Spawns a gtk window to display the changelogs. Needs python-glade2,
python-gtk2 to be installed.
- none
- Does nothing. Can be used to prevent apt-listchanges from running when
configured to run automatically from apt.
- --email-address=address
- In addition to displaying it, mail a copy of the changelog data to the
specified address. To only mail changelog entries, use this option with
the special frontend 'mail'.
- -c, --confirm
- Once changelogs have been displayed, ask the user whether or not to
proceed. If the user chooses not to proceed, a nonzero exit status will be
returned, and apt will abort.
- -a, --all
- Rather than trying to display changelog entries that are newer than the
currently installed version of the package, simply display all changelog
entries for all packages. This is useful for viewing the entire changelog
of a .deb before extracting it.
- --save_seen=file
- This option will cause apt-listchanges to keep track of the last version
of a package for which changelogs have been displayed, to avoid
redisplaying the same changelogs in a future invocation. The database is
stored in the named file. Specify 'none' to disable this feature.
- --since=version
- This option will cause apt-listchanges to show the entries later than the
specified version. With this option, the only other argument you can pass
is the path to a .deb file.
- --which={news|changelogs|both}
- This option selects whether news (from NEWS.Debian et al.), changelogs
(from changelog.Debian et al.) or both should be displayed. The default is
to display only news.
- --help
- Displays syntax information.
- -h, --headers
- These options will cause apt-listchanges to insert a header before each
package's changelog showing the name of the package, and the names of the
binary packages which are being upgraded (if there is more than one, or it
differs from the source package name).
- --debug
- Display some debugging information
- --profile=name
- Select an option profile. name corresponds to a section in
/etc/apt/listchanges.conf. The default when invoked from apt is
"apt", and "cmdline" otherwise.
- --reverse
- Show the changelog entries in reverse order.
ENVIRONMENT¶
- APT_LISTCHANGES_FRONTEND
- Frontend to use
- BROWSER
- Used by the browser frontend, should be set to a command expecting a file:
URL for an HTML file to display.
FILES¶
- /etc/apt/listchanges.conf
- Configuration file. Most options have the same names as command-line
options, with hyphens translated to underscores.
Example configuration file
[cmdline]
frontend=pager
[apt]
frontend=xterm-pager
email_address=root
confirm=1
[custom]
frontend=browser
browser=mozilla
-
- The above configuration file specifies that in command-line mode, the
default frontend should be "pager". In apt mode, the xterm-pager
frontend is default, a copy of the changelogs (if any) should be emailed
to root, and apt-listchanges should ask for confirmation. If
apt-listchanges is invoked with --profile=custom, the browser frontend
will be used, and invoke mozilla.
- /var/lib/apt/listchanges.db
- Database used for save-seen
AUTHOR¶
apt-listchanges was written by Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>
SEE ALSO¶
apt.conf(5)