deb-changelog

deb-changelog(5)                  dpkg suite                  deb-changelog(5)

NAME
       deb-changelog - dpkg source packages' changelog file format

SYNOPSIS
       changelog

DESCRIPTION
       Changes  in  the  packaged  version  of  a project are explained in the
       changelog file debian/changelog.  This includes modifications  made  in
       the  source  package  compared  to  the  upstream  one as well as other
       changes and updates to the package.

       The format of the debian/changelog allows the package building tools to
       discover which version of the package is being built and find out other
       release-specific information.

       That format is a series of entries like this:

       package (version) distributions; metadata
                 [optional blank line(s), stripped]
         * change-details
           more-change-details
                 [blank line(s), included in output of dpkg-parsechangelog(1)]
         * even-more-change-details
                 [optional blank line(s), stripped]
        -- maintainer-name <email-address>  date

       package and version are the source package name and version number.

       distributions lists one or  more  space-separated  distributions  where
       this  version  should be installed when it is uploaded; it is copied to
       the Distribution field in the .changes file.

       metadata is a comma-separated list of keyword=value  items.   The  only
       keywords  currently  supported  by  dpkg  are  urgency and binary-only.
       urgency's value is used for the Urgency field in the .changes file  for
       the  upload.  binary-only with a yes value, is used to denote that this
       changelog  entry  is  for  a  binary-only  non-maintainer  upload   (an
       automatic  binary  rebuild  with  the  only  change being the changelog
       entry).

       The change details may in fact be any series of lines starting with  at
       least  two  spaces,  but  conventionally  each  change  starts  with an
       asterisk and a separating space and continuation lines are indented  so
       as to bring them in line with the start of the text above.  Blank lines
       may be used here to separate groups of changes, if desired.

       If this upload resolves bugs recorded in the distribution bug  tracking
       system,  they  may  be  automatically  closed  on the inclusion of this
       package into the distribution archive by including the string:
         Closes: Bug#nnnnn
       in  the  change  details  (the  exact  Perl   regular   expression   is
       /closes:\s*(?:bug)?\#?\s?\d+(?:,\s*(?:bug)?\#?\s?\d+)*/i).         This
       information is conveyed via the Closes field in the .changes file.

       The maintainer name and email address used in the changelog  should  be
       the  details  of  the  person who prepared this release of the package.
       They are not  necessarily  those  of  the  uploader  or  usual  package
       maintainer.   The  information  here  will  be copied to the Changed-By
       field in the .changes file, and then later might be  used  to  send  an
       acknowledgement  when the upload has been installed in the distribution
       archive.

       The date has  the  following  format  (compatible  and  with  the  same
       semantics of RFC2822 and RFC5322, or what <<date -R>> generates):

              day-of-week, dd month yyyy hh:mm:ss +zzzz

       where:

       day-of-week
              Is one of: Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun.

       dd     Is a one- or two-digit day of the month (01-31).

       month  Is  one  of:  Jan,  Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct,
              Nov, Dec.

       yyyy   Is the four-digit year (e.g. 2010).

       hh     Is the two-digit hour (00-23).

       mm     Is the two-digit minutes (00-59).

       ss     Is the two-digit seconds (00-60).

       [+-]zzzz
              Is the time zone offset from Coordinated Universal  Time  (UTC).
              '+'  indicates that the time is ahead of (i.e., east of) UTC and
              '-' indicates that the time is behind (i.e., west of) UTC.   The
              first  two  digits indicate the hour difference from UTC and the
              last two  digits  indicate  the  number  of  additional  minutes
              difference  from  UTC.  The last two digits must be in the range
              00-59.

       The first "title" line with the package name must  start  at  the  left
       hand  margin.   The "trailer" line with the maintainer and date details
       must be preceded by exactly one space.  The maintainer details and  the
       date must be separated by exactly two spaces.

       Any  line  that consists entirely (i.e., no leading whitespace) of # or
       /* */ style comments or RCS keywords.

       Vim modelines or Emacs local variables, and ancient  changelog  entries
       with  other  formats  at  the  end  of  the file should be accepted and
       preserved on output, but their contents might be otherwise ignored  and
       parsing stopped at that point.

       The entire changelog must be encoded in UTF-8.

FILES
       debian/changelog

EXAMPLES
       dpkg (1.17.18) unstable; urgency=low

         [ Guillem Jover ]
         * Handle empty minimum versions when initializing dependency versions,
           as the code is mapping the minimum version 0 to '' to avoid outputting
           useless versions. Regression introduced in dpkg 1.17.17. Closes: #764929

         [ Updated programs translations ]
         * Catalan (Guillem Jover).

         [ Updated dselect translations ]
         * Catalan (Guillem Jover).
         * German (Sven Joachim).

        -- Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>  Sun, 12 Oct 2014 15:47:44 +0200

SEE ALSO
       deb-version(7), deb-changes(5), dpkg-parsechangelog(1).

1.19.7                            2022-05-25                  deb-changelog(5)