NAME

       pkgkde-symbolshelper  -  a  tool  to  help simplify managing C++ symbols files for the KDE
       project.

SYNOPSIS

       pkgkde-symbolshelper create | patch | batchpatch | rewrite

DESCRIPTION

       pkgkde-symbolshelper  provides  helps  to  automate   the   process   of   managing   your
       deb-symbols(5) files.

       There are four commands, create, patch, batchpatch, and rewrite.

CREATING SYMBOLS FILE

       To create the symbols file for a library package libfoo1 whose version is 1.7
              pkgkde-gensymbols -plibfoo1 -v1.7 -Osymbols.amd64 -edebian/libfoo1/usr/lib/libfoo.so.1
              pkgkde-symbolshelper create -o debian/libfoo1.symbols -v 1.7 symbols.amd64

       The above commands should be invoked from the top level directory of your package's source
       after having built the package before cleaning, so that debian/libfoo1/usr/lib/libfoo.so.1
       exists).

       "symbols.amd64" is the filename of the intermediate symbols file that will be generated by
       pkgkde-gensymbols.  This  filename  must  be  in   the   format   "name.architecture"   or
       "name_architecture"  where  "architecture" is the cpu architecture on which you have built
       this package.

UPDATING A SYMBOLS FILE FOR A NEW LIBRARY VERSION

       After building a new version of the library (for instance 1.8 of our libfoo1 library  from
       above),  symbols  may  have  been  added  or removed, and in both cases one must check and
       update the symbols file. During the build, a diff between the current symbols file and the
       one  based  on the current built library will printed in the output.  pkgkde-symbolshelper
       can read the build log to find this diff, to save the build log one may want to do:
              dpkg-buildpackage | tee buildlog
              pkgkde-symbolshelper patch -p libfoo1 -v 1.8 < buildlog

UPDATING MULTIPLE SYMBOLS FILES AT ONCE

       For source packages that provide multiple binary library packages, it is useful to have  a
       method to patch all the symbol files at once, pkgkde-symbolshelper offers a way to do this
       using the batchpatch command. For example:
              pkgkde-symbolshelper batchpatch -v 1.8 < buildlog

       batchpatch can also be of  use  when  one  wants  to  update  symbol  files  for  multiple
       architectures  at  once.  There  is  an  additional  command pkgkde-getbuildlogs that will
       download the build logs for multiple architectures from Debian's build servers.
              pkgkde-getbuildlogs
              pkgkde-symbolshelper batchpatch -v 1.8 foo_unstable_logs/foo_1.8-1*.build

NOTES

       This man page was based text written by others from the pkg-kde symbols file help page.

SEE ALSO

       https://qt-kde-team.pages.debian.net/symbolfiles.html
       https://people.redhat.com/drepper/symbol-versioning
       https://people.redhat.com/drepper/goodpractice.pdf
       https://people.redhat.com/drepper/dsohowto.pdf
       dpkg-gensymbols(1), deb-symbols(5), dpkg-shlibdeps(1).