NAME¶
debdeltas - compute deltas between Debian packages
SYNOPSIS¶
debdeltas [
OPTION]...
ARGS ...
DESCRIPTION¶
debdeltas computes deltas between the old and new versions of Debian
packages.
The explanation of what a delta is is in
debdelta(1).
COMMAND ARGUMENTS¶
In all of the following,
ARGS can be, a Debian binary file (usually, a
file ending in
.deb), or a directory containing such files, or a
Packages file (that is, an index file such as those found in Debian
mirrors - even the zipped ones - see
apt-ftparchive(1) ). We will call
cmdline all such args that are not related to an option.
As a first step,
debdeltas builds an internal list of Debian packages. To
this end, it parses all
ARGS of the options
--alt ,
--old
, and those
ARGS given as non-option arguments (the aforementioned
cmdline args). If the argument is a Debian package,
debdeltas adds it
to the list; if the argument is a directory,
debdeltas scans it for
Debian packages to be added to the list; if the argument is
Packages
files,
debdeltas parses it and adds all Debian packages to the list.
Then debdeltas groups all found Debian packages by name and architecture.
For each group, the newest cmdline version is isolated, and then deltas are
computed from all --old versions to that version.
These deltas are stored in many delta files with appropriate names of the form
name_oldversion_newversion_architecture.debdelta ; the location of the
delta files is specified by the "--dir" option.
Note that the location of files in a
Packages index is specified relative
to the base of the mirror, e.g.
Filename:
pool/main/x/xxx/xxx_3_i386.deb For this reason, any
Packages
argument must presented with a long path (that contains at least the
dists directory).
Note also that the same directory or index can be provided many times, as --old,
as --alt, and as cmdline argument.
Note also that debdeltas will skip all packages that are smaller than 10KB.
MAIN OPTIONS¶
- --dir DIR
- force saving of deltas in this DIR (otherwise they go in the dir of the
newer deb_file).
- --alt ARGS
- this is parsed as the non-option command line, but the found packages are
never considered for a delta. They are considered though when
--clean-deltas is used, to decide if to delete a delta; and are useful to
find debs that are deleted from indexes and moved elsewhere. Multiple
--alt can be specified.
- --old ARGS
- this is parsed as the non-option command line, and the found packages are
considered as the older versions. Multiple --old can be specified.
Moreover, when scanning a Packages index, it is not an error if
files do not exist, as long as they have been moved in a --alt directory.
Note that, if no --old is specified, then no deltas will be
generated.
- --forensicdir DIR
- write hashes files; these are to be compared with those produced by
debdelta-upgrade --forensic=... when a delta fails
The double slash¶
If a directory path is provided as argument to --dir, and it ends in // , then
this triggers a specific behaviour related to files found in
Packages
indexes (as presented in the commandline). If a package in a index is stored
in
pool/main/x/xxx/xxx_3_i386.deb , and --dir is
/tmp/foobar// ,
then the delta will be saved in
/tmp/foobar/pool/main/x/xxx/xxx_2_3_i386.debdelta. The same is true for
--alt (and is useful to find old versions of a package).
OTHER OPTIONS¶
- --signing-key KEY
- key used to sign the deltas (using GnuPG)
- -n N
- how many deltas to produce at maximum for each unique package/arch
(default unlimited)
- --clean-deltas
- delete deltas that upgrade to packages versions that are not found in the
cmdline ARGS, and are at least two days old (according to mtime).
- --no-md5
- do not include MD5 info in debdelta.
- --needsold
- create a patch that can only be used if the old .deb is available.
- --delta-algo ALGO
- use a specific backend for computing binary diffs; possible values are:
xdelta xdelta-bzip xdelta3 bsdiff
- -M Mb
- maximum memory to use (for 'bsdiff' or 'xdelta').
- --test
- check that the patch does apply.
- -v
- verbose (can be added multiple times).
- -d
- print traceback on errors; save useful info in temporary files in case
that a backend crashes.
(If '-d' is added multiple times, it also adds to the patches other extra
debugging checks: only for advanced bug tracking).
- -k
- keep temporary files (use for debugging).
- --gpg-home
- specify a different home for GnuPG, default for root is
/etc/debdelta/gnupg while for other users is unset. See
--homedir in gpg(1) for details.
- --disable-feature FEATURE
- disable an internal feature. See the documentation in
README.features.
- --no-act
- Just list the deltas that would be created.
SECURITY¶
See
debdelta(1)
EXIT STATUS¶
See
debdelta(1)
EXAMPLES¶
debdeltas --dir /tmp/ --old ~/mydebs ~/mydebs will generate all deltas to
upgrade from the old versions in ~/mydebs to the newest version in ~/mydebs ,
and store the deltas in /tmp/
debdeltas --dir /tmp// --old
/mirror/debian/dists/lenny/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz
/mirror/debian/dists/squeeze/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz will generate
all deltas to upgrade main/i386 from lenny to squeeze, and store the deltas in
a pool structure under /tmp/
See also the example scripts
/usr/share/debdelta/debmirror-delta-security
and
/usr/share/debdelta/debmirror-deltas
REPORTING BUGS¶
Report bugs to <mennucc1@debian.org>.
AUTHORS¶
Debdelta was written and is copyright © 2006-09 Andrea Mennucci.
This man page was written by Jegou Pierre-yves <pierreyves.jeg@voila.fr>.
COPYING¶
This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the
GNU Library General Public License
<
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.0.html>. There is NO WARRANTY, to
the extent permitted by law.
SEE ALSO¶
debpatch(1),
debdelta(1),
/usr/share/doc/debdelta/README.