table of contents
other versions
- wheezy 2.85.11
- jessie 2.85.13+nmu1
- testing 3.10
- unstable 3.10
- experimental 3.11~exp1
apt-listchanges(1) | General Commands Manual | apt-listchanges(1) |
NAME¶
apt-listchanges — Show new changelog entries from Debian package archivesSYNOPSIS¶
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.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.
- 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.
[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