NAME

       plotchangelog - graph Debian changelogs

SYNOPSIS

       plotchangelog [options] changelog ...

DESCRIPTION

       plotchangelog  is  a  tool  to  aid  in  visualizing  a Debian changelog. The changelogs are graphed with
       gnuplot(1) , with the X axis of the graph denoting time of release and the Y  axis  denoting  the  Debian
       version  number of the package. Each individual release of the package is represented by a point, and the
       points are color coded to indicate who released that version of the package. The upstream version  number
       of the package can also be labeled on the graph.

       Alternatively,  the  Y  axis  can  be  configured to display the size of the changelog entry for each new
       version. Or it can be configured to display approximately how many bugs were fixed for each new version.

       Note that if the package is a Debian-specific package, the entire package version will be used for the  Y
       axis. This does not always work perfectly.

READING THE GRAPH

       The  general  outline  of a package's graph is typically a series of peaks, starting at 1, going up to n,
       and then returning abruptly to 1. The higher the peaks, the more releases the maintainer made between new
       upstream  versions of the package. If a package is Debian-only, it's graph will just grow upwards without
       ever falling (although a bug in this program may cause it to fall sometimes, if the version  number  goes
       from say, 0.9 to say, 0.10 - this is interpreted wrong...)

       If  the  graph dips below 1, someone made a NMU of the package and upgraded it to a new upstream version,
       thus setting the Debian version to 0. NMU's in general appear as fractional points like 1.1, 2.1, etc.  A
       NMU  can  also  be  easily detected by looking at the points that represent which maintainer uploaded the
       package -- a solitary point of a different type than the points before and after it is typically a NMU.

       It's also easy to tell by looking at the points when a package changes maintainers.

OPTIONS

       -l, --linecount
              Instead of using the Debian version number as the Y axis, use the number of lines in the changelog
              entry for each version.  Cannot be used together with --bugcount.

       -b, --bugcount
              Instead  of using the Debian version number as the Y axis, use the number of bugs that were closed
              by each changelog entry. Note that this number  is  obtained  by  searching  for  "#dddd"  in  the
              changelog, and so it may be inaccurate.  Cannot be used together with --linecount.

       -c, --cumulative
              When  used together with either --bugcount or --linecount, graphs the cumulative count rather than
              the count in each individual changelog entry.

       -v, --no-version
              Do not show upstream version labels. Useful if the graph gets too crowded.

       -m, --no-maint
              Do not differentiate between different maintainers of the package.

       -s file, --save=file
              Save the graph to file in PostScript format instead of immediately displaying it.

       -u, --urgency
              Use larger points when displaying higher-urgency package uploads.

       --verbose
              Output the gnuplot script that is fed into gnuplot (for debugging purposes).

       -gcommands, --gnuplot=commands
              This allows you to insert gnuplot(1) commands into the gnuplot script that is used to generate the
              graph.  The  commands  are placed after all initialization but before the final plot command. This
              can be used to override the default look provided by this program in arbitrary ways. You can  also
              use  things  like  "set  terminal  png  color"  to change the output file type, which is useful in
              conjunction with the -s option.

       --help Show a usage summary.

       --version
              Display version, author and copyright information.

       --noconf, --no-conf
              Do not read any configuration files (see below).

       changelog ...
              The changelog files to graph. If multiple files are specified they will all be  displayed  on  the
              same  graph.  The  files  may  be  compressed  with  gzip.  Any text in them that is not in Debian
              changelog format will be ignored.

CONFIGURATION VARIABLES

       The two configuration files /etc/devscripts.conf and ~/.devscripts are sourced by a shell in  that  order
       to  set  configuration  variables.   The  --no-conf  option  can  be used to prevent reading these files.
       Environment variable settings are ignored  when  these  configuration  files  are  read.   The  currently
       recognised variables are:

       PLOTCHANGELOG_OPTIONS
              This  is a space-separated list of options to always use, for example -l -b.  Do not include -g or
              --gnuplot among this list as it may be ignored; see the next variable instead.

       PLOTCHANGELOG_GNUPLOT
              These are gnuplot commands which will be prepended to any such commands given on the command line.

SEE ALSO

       devscripts.conf(5)

AUTHOR

       Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>