Provided by: devscripts_2.25.19ubuntu2_all 
NAME
debian/watch version 4 - Format specification for old format, version 4
DESCRIPTION
This document describe old version 4 format of debian/watch.
FORMAT OF THE WATCH FILE, VERSION 4
The version 4 format of debian/watch can be summarized as follows:
• Leading spaces and tabs are dropped.
• Empty lines are dropped.
• A line started by # (hash) is a comment line and dropped.
• A single \ (back slash) at the end of a line is dropped and the next line is concatenated after
removing leading spaces and tabs. The concatenated line is parsed as a single line. (The existence or
non-existence of the space before the tailing single \ is significant.)
• The first non-comment line is:
version=4
This is a required line and the recommended version number.
If you use "version=3" instead here, some features may not work as documented here. See "HISTORY AND
UPGRADING" in uscan(1).
• The following non-comment lines (watch lines) specify the rules for the selection of the candidate
upstream tarball URLs and are in one of the following three formats:
• opts=" ... " http://URL matching-pattern [version [script]]
• http://URL matching-pattern [version [script]]
• opts=" ... "
Here,
• opts=" ... " specifies the behavior of uscan. See "WATCH FILE OPTIONS" in uscan(1).
• http://URL specifies the web page where upstream publishes the link to the latest source archive.
• https://URL may also be used, as may
• ftp://URL
• Some parts of URL may be in the regex match pattern surrounded between ( and ) such as
/foo/bar-([\.\d]+)/. (If multiple directories match, the highest version is picked.)
Otherwise, the URL is taken as verbatim.
• matching-pattern specifies the full string matching pattern for hrefs in the web page. See
"WATCH FILE EXAMPLES" in uscan(1).
• All matching parts in ( and ) are concatenated with . (period) to form the upstream version.
• If the hrefs do not contain directories, you can combine this with the previous entry. I.e.,
http://URL/matching-pattern .
• version restricts the upstream tarball which may be downloaded. The newest available version is
chosen in each case.
• debian (default) requires the downloading upstream tarball to be newer than the version
obtained from debian/changelog.
• version-number such as 12.5 requires the upstream tarball to be newer than the version-
number.
• same requires the downloaded version of the secondary tarballs to be exactly the same as the
one for the first upstream tarball downloaded. (Useful only for MUT)
• previous restricts the version of the signature file. (Used with pgpmode=previous)
• ignore does not restrict the version of the secondary tarballs. (Maybe useful for MUT)
• group requires the downloading upstream tarball to be newer than the version obtained from
debian/changelog. Package version is the concatenation of all "group" upstream version.
• checksum requires the downloading upstream tarball to be newer than the version obtained from
debian/changelog. Package version is the concatenation of the version of the main tarball,
followed by a checksum of all the tarballs using the "checksum" version system. At least the
main upstream source has to be declared as "group".
• script is executed at the end of uscan execution with appropriate arguments provided by uscan
(default: no action).
• The typical Debian package is a non-native package made from one upstream tarball. Only a
single line of the watch line in one of the first two formats is usually used with its
version set to debian and script set to uupdate.
• A native package should not specify script.
• A multiple upstream tarball (MUT) package should specify uupdate as script in the last watch
line and should skip specifying script in the rest of the watch lines.
• The last format of the watch line is useful to set the persistent parameters: user-agent,
compression. If this format is used, this must be followed by the URL defining watch line(s).
• [ and ] in the above format are there to mark the optional parts and should not be typed.
There are a few special strings which are substituted by uscan to make it easy to write the watch file.
@PACKAGE@
This is substituted with the source package name found in the first line of the debian/changelog
file.
@ANY_VERSION@
This is substituted by the legal upstream version regex (capturing).
[-_]?[Vv]?(\d[\-+\.:\~\da-zA-Z]*)
@ARCHIVE_EXT@
This is substituted by the typical archive file extension regex (non-capturing).
(?i)(?:\.(?:tar\.xz|tar\.bz2|tar\.gz|tar\.zstd?|zip|tgz|tbz|txz))
@SIGNATURE_EXT@
This is substituted by the typical signature file extension regex (non-capturing).
(?i)(?:\.(?:tar\.xz|tar\.bz2|tar\.gz|tar\.zstd?|zip|tgz|tbz|txz))(?:\.(?:asc|pgp|gpg|sig|sign))
@DEB_EXT@
This is substituted by the typical Debian extension regexp (capturing).
[\+~](debian|dfsg|ds|deb)(\.)?(\d+)?$
Some file extensions are not included in the above intentionally to avoid false positives. You can still
set such file extension patterns manually.
WATCH FILE OPTIONS
uscan reads the watch options specified in opts=" ... " to customize its behavior. Multiple options
option1, option2, option3, ... can be set as opts="option1, option2, option3, ... " . The double
quotes are necessary if options contain any spaces.
Unless otherwise noted as persistent, most options are valid only within their containing watch line.
The available watch options are:
component=component
Set the name of the secondary source tarball as <spkg>_<oversion>.orig-<component>.tar.gz for a MUT
package.
ctype=component-type
Set the type of component (only "nodejs" and "perl" are available for now). This will help uscan to
find current version if component version is ignored.
When using ctype=nodejs, uscan tries to find a version in "package.json", when using ctype=perl,
uscan tries to find a version in "META.json". If a version is found, it is used as current version
for this component, regardless version found in Debian version string. This permits a better change
detection when using ignore or checksum as Debian version.
compression=method
Set the compression method when the tarball is repacked (persistent).
Available method values are what mk-origtargz supports, so xz, gzip (alias gz), bzip2 (alias bz2),
lzma, default. The default method is currently xz. When uscan is launched in a debian source
repository which format is "1.0" or undefined, the method switches to gzip.
Please note the repacking of the upstream tarballs by mk-origtargz happens only if one of the
following conditions is satisfied:
• USCAN_REPACK is set in the devscripts configuration. See "DEVSCRIPTS CONFIGURATION VARIABLES" in
uscan(1).
• --repack is set on the commandline. See "COMMANDLINE OPTIONS" in uscan(1).
• repack is set in the watch line as opts="repack,...".
• The upstream archive is of zip type including jar, xpi, ...
• The upstream archive is of zstd (Zstandard) type.
• Files-Excluded or Files-Excluded-component stanzas are set in debian/copyright to make mk-
origtargz invoked from uscan remove files from the upstream tarball and repack it. See
"COPYRIGHT FILE EXAMPLES" in uscan(1) and mk-origtargz(1).
repack
Force repacking of the upstream tarball using the compression method.
repacksuffix=suffix
Add suffix to the Debian package upstream version only when the source tarball is repackaged. This
rule should be used only for a single upstream tarball package.
mode=mode
Set the archive download mode.
LWP This mode is the default one which downloads the specified tarball from the archive URL on the
web. Automatically internal mode value is updated to either http or ftp by URL.
git This mode accesses the upstream git archive directly with the git command and packs the source
tree with the specified tag via matching-pattern into spkg-version.tar.xz.
If the upstream publishes the released tarball via its web interface, please use it instead of
using this mode. This mode is the last resort method.
For git mode, matching-pattern specifies the full string matching pattern for tags instead of
hrefs. If matching-pattern is set to refs/tags/tag-matching-pattern, uscan downloads source from
the refs/tags/matched-tag of the git repository. The upstream version is extracted from
concatenating the matched parts in ( ... ) with . . See "WATCH FILE EXAMPLES".
If matching-pattern is set to HEAD, uscan downloads source from the HEAD of the git repository
and the pertinent version is automatically generated with the date and hash of the HEAD of the
git repository.
If matching-pattern is set to heads/branch, uscan downloads source from the named branch of the
git repository.
The local repository is created temporarily as either a bare git repository or a cloned git
repository if gitmodules is specified. The tarball is then generated from the temporary git
repository and saved in the destination directory.
The temporary repository is normally erased after uscan execution but is kept if the --debug
option is specified.
If the current directory is a git repository and the searched repository is listed among the
registered "remotes", then uscan will use it instead of cloning separately. The only local
change is that uscan will run a "fetch" command to refresh the repository.
svn This mode accesses the upstream Subversion archive directly with the svn command and packs the
source tree.
For svn mode, matching-pattern specifies the full string matching pattern for directories under
Subversion repository directory, specified via URL. The upstream version is extracted from
concatenating the matched parts in ( ... ) with . .
If matching-pattern is set to HEAD, uscan downloads the latest source tree of the URL. The
upstream version is then constructed by appending the last revision of the URL to 0.0~svn.
As commit signing is not possible with Subversion, the default pgpmode is set to none when
mode=svn. Settings of pgpmode other than default and none are reported as errors.
pretty=rule
Set the upstream version string to an arbitrary format as an optional opts argument when the
matching-pattern is HEAD or heads/branch for git mode. For the exact syntax, see the git-log manpage
under tformat. The default is pretty=0.0~git%cd.%h. No version mangling rule is necessary for this
case.
When pretty=describe is used, the upstream version string is the output of the "git describe --tags |
sed s/-/./g" command instead. For example, if the commit is the 5-th after the last tag v2.17.12 and
its short hash is ged992511, then the string is v2.17.12.5.ged992511. For this case, it is
recommended to add filenamemangle=s/^(@PACKAGE@)-/$1-0.0~/ or filenamemangle=s/^(@PACKAGE@-)v/$1/ to
make the upstream version string suitable for Debian. Please note that in order for pretty=describe
to function well, upstream needs to avoid tagging with random alphabetic tags.
Using pretty=describe also sets gitmode=full to make a full local clone of the repository
automatically.
date=rule
Set the date string used by the pretty option to an arbitrary format as an optional opts argument
when the matching-pattern is HEAD or heads/branch for git mode. For the exact syntax, see the
strftime manpage. The default is date=%Y%m%d.
gitexport=mode
Set the git archive export operation mode. The default is gitexport=default. Set this to
gitexport=all to include all files in the .orig.tar archive, ignoring any export-ignore git
attributes defined by the upstream. This option also applies to submodules, if gitmodules is
specified.
This option is valid only in git mode.
gitmode=mode
Set the git clone operation mode. The default is gitmode=shallow. For some dumb git server, you may
need to manually set gitmode=full to force full clone operation.
If the current directory is a git repository and the searched repository is listed among the
registered "remotes", then uscan will use it instead of cloning separately.
gitmodules[=modules]
Clone one or more submodules after cloning the main git repository. By default, uscan will clone all
submodules linked to the git repository.
To clone selected submodules, use a semicolon-separated list. For example: gitmodules=m4;doc/common.
pgpmode=mode
Set the OpenPGP signature verification mode.
auto
uscan checks possible URLs for the signature file and autogenerates a pgpsigurlmangle rule to use
it.
default
Use pgpsigurlmangle=rules to generate the candidate upstream signature file URL string from the
upstream tarball URL. (default)
If the specified pgpsigurlmangle is missing, uscan checks possible URLs for the signature file
and suggests adding a pgpsigurlmangle rule.
mangle
Use pgpsigurlmangle=rules to generate the candidate upstream signature file URL string from the
upstream tarball URL.
next
Verify this downloaded tarball file with the signature file specified in the next watch line.
The next watch line must be pgpmode=previous. Otherwise, no verification occurs.
previous
Verify the downloaded tarball file specified in the previous watch line with this signature file.
The previous watch line must be pgpmode=next.
self
Verify the downloaded file foo.ext with its self signature and extract its content tarball file
as foo.
gittag
Verify tag signature if mode=git.
none
No signature available. (No warning.)
searchmode=mode
Set the parsing search mode.
html (default): search pattern in "href" parameter of <a> HTML tags
plain: search pattern in the full page
This is useful if page content is not HTML but JSON. Example with npmjs.com:
version=4
opts="searchmode=plain" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/aes-js \
https://registry.npmjs.org/aes-js/-/aes-js-(\d[\d\.]*)@ARCHIVE_EXT@
decompress
Decompress compressed archive before the OpenPGP signature verification.
bare
Disable all site specific special case code such as URL redirector uses and page content alterations.
(persistent)
user-agent=user-agent-string
Set the user-agent string used to contact the HTTP(S) server as user-agent-string. (persistent)
user-agent option should be specified by itself in the watch line without URL, to allow using
semicolons and commas in it.
unzipopt=options
Add the extra options to use with the unzip command, such as -a, -aa, and -b, when executed by mk-
origtargz.
dversionmangle=rules
Normalize the last upstream version string found in debian/changelog to compare it to the available
upstream tarball version. Removal of the Debian specific suffix such as s/@DEB_EXT@// is usually
done here.
You can also use dversionmangle=auto, this is exactly the same than dversionmangle=s/@DEB_EXT@//
dirversionmangle=rules
Normalize the directory path string matching the regex in a set of parentheses of http://URL as the
sortable version index string. This is used as the directory path sorting index only.
Substitution such as s/PRE/~pre/; s/RC/~rc/ may help.
pagemangle=rules
Normalize the downloaded web page string. (Don't use this unless this is absolutely needed.
Generally, g flag is required for these rules.)
This is handy if you wish to access Amazon AWS or Subversion repositories in which <a href="..."> is
not used.
uversionmangle=rules
Normalize the candidate upstream version strings extracted from hrefs in the source of the web page.
This is used as the version sorting index when selecting the latest upstream version.
Substitution such as s/PRE/~pre/; s/RC/~rc/ may help.
versionmangle=rules
Syntactic shorthand for uversionmangle=rules, dversionmangle=rules
hrefdecode=percent-encoding
Convert the selected upstream tarball href string from the percent-encoded hexadecimal string to the
decoded normal URL string for obfuscated web sites. Only percent-encoding is available and it is
decoded with s/%([A-Fa-f\d]{2})/chr hex $1/eg.
downloadurlmangle=rules
Convert the selected upstream tarball href string into the accessible URL for obfuscated web sites.
This is run after hrefdecode.
filenamemangle=rules
Generate the upstream tarball filename from the selected href string if matching-pattern can extract
the latest upstream version <uversion> from the selected href string. Otherwise, generate the
upstream tarball filename from its full URL string and set the missing <uversion> from the generated
upstream tarball filename.
Without this option, the default upstream tarball filename is generated by taking the last component
of the URL and removing everything after any '?' or '#'.
pgpsigurlmangle=rules
Generate the candidate upstream signature file URL string from the upstream tarball URL.
oversionmangle=rules
Generate the version string <oversion> of the source tarball <spkg>_<oversion>.orig.tar.gz from
<uversion>. This should be used to add a suffix such as +dfsg to a MUT package.
Here, the mangling rules apply the rules to the pertinent string. Multiple rules can be specified in a
mangling rule string by making a concatenated string of each mangling rule separated by ; (semicolon).
Each mangling rule cannot contain ; (semicolon), , (comma), or " (double quote).
Each mangling rule behaves as if a Perl command "$string =~ rule" is executed. There are some notable
details.
• rule may only use the s, tr, and y operations.
s/regex/replacement/options
Regex pattern match and replace the target string. Only the g, i and x flags are available. Use
the $1 syntax for back references (No \1 syntax). Code execution is not allowed (i.e. no (?{})
or (??{}) constructs).
y/source/dest/ or tr/source/dest/
Transliterate the characters in the target string.
EXAMPLE OF EXECUTION
uscan reads the first entry in debian/changelog to determine the source package name and the last
upstream version.
For example, if the first entry of debian/changelog is:
• bar (3:2.03+dfsg-4) unstable; urgency=low
then, the source package name is bar and the last Debian package version is 3:2.03+dfsg-4.
The last upstream version is normalized to 2.03+dfsg by removing the epoch and the Debian revision.
If the dversionmangle rule exists, the last upstream version is further normalized by applying this rule
to it. For example, if the last upstream version is 2.03+dfsg indicating the source tarball is
repackaged, the suffix +dfsg is removed by the string substitution s/\+dfsg\d*$// to make the
(dversionmangled) last upstream version 2.03 and it is compared to the candidate upstream tarball
versions such as 2.03, 2.04, ... found in the remote site. Thus, set this rule as:
• opts="dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg\d*$//"
uscan downloads a web page from http://URL specified in debian/watch.
• If the directory name part of URL has no parentheses, ( and ), it is taken as verbatim.
• If the directory name part of URL has parentheses, ( and ), then uscan recursively searches all
possible directories to find a page for the newest version. If the dirversionmangle rule exists, the
generated sorting index is used to find the newest version. If a specific version is specified for
the download, the matching version string has priority over the newest version.
For example, this http://URL may be specified as:
• http://www.example.org/@ANY_VERSION@/
Please note the trailing / in the above to make @ANY_VERSION@ as the directory.
If the pagemangle rule exists, the whole downloaded web page as a string is normalized by applying this
rule to it. This is very powerful tool and needs to be used with caution. If other mangling rules can
be used to address your objective, do not use this rule.
The downloaded web page is scanned for hrefs defined in the <a href=" ... "> tag to locate the candidate
upstream tarball hrefs. These candidate upstream tarball hrefs are matched by the Perl regex pattern
matching-pattern such as DL-(?:[\d\.]+?)/foo-(.+)\.tar\.gz to narrow down the candidates. This pattern
match needs to be anchored at the beginning and the end. For example, candidate hrefs may be:
• DL-2.02/foo-2.02.tar.gz
• DL-2.03/foo-2.03.tar.gz
• DL-2.04/foo-2.04.tar.gz
Here the matching string of (.+) in matching-pattern is considered as the candidate upstream version. If
there are multiple matching strings of capturing patterns in matching-pattern, they are all concatenated
with . (period) to form the candidate upstream version. Make sure to use the non-capturing regex such
as (?:[\d\.]+?) instead for the variable text matching part unrelated to the version.
Then, the candidate upstream versions are:
• 2.02
• 2.03
• 2.04
The downloaded tarball filename is basically set to the same as the filename in the remote URL of the
selected href.
If the uversionmangle rule exists, the candidate upstream versions are normalized by applying this rule
to them. (This rule may be useful if the upstream version scheme doesn't sort correctly to identify the
newest version.)
The upstream tarball href corresponding to the newest (uversionmangled) candidate upstream version newer
than the (dversionmangled) last upstream version is selected.
If multiple upstream tarball hrefs corresponding to a single version with different extensions exist, the
highest compression one is chosen. (Priority: tar.xz > tar.lzma > tar.bz2 > tar.gz.)
If the selected upstream tarball href is the relative URL, it is converted to the absolute URL using the
base URL of the web page. If the <base href=" ... "> tag exists in the web page, the selected upstream
tarball href is converted to the absolute URL using the specified base URL in the base tag, instead.
If the downloadurlmangle rule exists, the selected upstream tarball href is normalized by applying this
rule to it. (This is useful for some sites with the obfuscated download URL.)
If the filenamemangle rule exists, the downloaded tarball filename is generated by applying this rule to
the selected href if matching-pattern can extract the latest upstream version <uversion> from the
selected href string. Otherwise, generate the upstream tarball filename from its full URL string and set
the missing <uversion> from the generated upstream tarball filename.
Without the filenamemangle rule, the default upstream tarball filename is generated by taking the last
component of the URL and removing everything after any '?' or '#'.
uscan downloads the selected upstream tarball to the parent ../ directory. For example, the downloaded
file may be:
• ../foo-2.04.tar.gz
Let's call this downloaded version 2.04 in the above example generically as <uversion> in the following.
If the pgpsigurlmangle rule exists, the upstream signature file URL is generated by applying this rule to
the (downloadurlmangled) selected upstream tarball href and the signature file is tried to be downloaded
from it.
If the pgpsigurlmangle rule doesn't exist, uscan warns user if the matching upstream signature file is
available from the same URL with their filename being suffixed by the 5 common suffix asc, sig, sign, pgp
and gpg. (You can avoid this warning by setting pgpmode=none.)
If the signature file is downloaded, the downloaded upstream tarball is checked for its authenticity
against the downloaded signature file using the armored keyring debian/upstream/signing-key.asc (see
"KEYRING FILE EXAMPLES" in uscan(1)). If its signature is not valid, or not made by one of the listed
keys, uscan will report an error.
If the oversionmangle rule exists, the source tarball version oversion is generated from the downloaded
upstream version uversion by applying this rule. This rule is useful to add suffix such as +dfsg to the
version of all the source packages of the MUT package for which the repacksuffix mechanism doesn't work.
uscan invokes mk-origtargz to create the source tarball properly named for the source package with .orig.
(or .orig-<component>. for the secondary tarballs) in its filename.
case A: packaging of the upstream tarball as is
mk-origtargz creates a symlink ../bar_<oversion>.orig.tar.gz linked to the downloaded local upstream
tarball. Here, bar is the source package name found in debian/changelog. The generated symlink may
be:
• ../bar_2.04.orig.tar.gz -> foo-2.04.tar.gz (as is)
Usually, there is no need to set up opts="dversionmangle= ... " for this case.
case B: packaging of the upstream tarball after removing non-DFSG files
mk-origtargz checks the filename glob of the Files-Excluded stanza in the first section of
debian/copyright, removes matching files to create a repacked upstream tarball. Normally, the
repacked upstream tarball is renamed with suffix to ../bar_<oversion><suffix>.orig.tar.gz using the
repacksuffix option for the single upstream package. Here <oversion> is updated to be
<oversion><suffix>.
The removal of files is required if files are not DFSG-compliant. For such case, +dfsg is used as
suffix.
So the combined options are set as opts="dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg\d*$// ,repacksuffix=+dfsg", instead.
For example, the repacked upstream tarball may be:
• ../bar_2.04+dfsg.orig.tar.gz (repackaged)
uscan normally invokes "uupdate --find --upstream-version oversion " for the version=4 watch file.
Please note that --find option is used here since mk-origtargz has been invoked to make *.orig.tar.gz
file already. uscan picks bar from debian/changelog.
It creates the new upstream source tree under the ../bar-<oversion> directory and Debianize it leveraging
the last package contents.
WATCH FILE EXAMPLES
When writing the watch file, you should rely on the latest upstream source announcement web page. You
should not try to second guess the upstream archive structure if possible. Here are the typical
debian/watch files.
Please note that executing uscan with -v or -vv reveals what exactly happens internally.
The existence and non-existence of a space the before tailing \ (back slash) are significant.
Some undocumented shorter configuration strings are used in the below EXAMPLES to help you with typing.
These are intentional ones. uscan is written to accept such common sense abbreviations but don't push
the limit.
HTTP site (basic)
Here is an example for the basic single upstream tarball.
version=4
http://example.com/~user/release/@PACKAGE@.html \
files/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Or without using the substitution strings (not recommended):
http://example.com/~user/release/foo.html \
files/foo-([\d\.]+)\.tar\.gz
version=4
For the upstream source package foo-2.0.tar.gz, this watch file downloads and creates the Debian orig.tar
file foo_2.0.orig.tar.gz.
HTTP site (pgpsigurlmangle)
Here is an example for the basic single upstream tarball with the matching signature file in the same
file path.
version=4
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.asc%" http://example.com/release/@PACKAGE@.html \
files/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
For the upstream source package foo-2.0.tar.gz and the upstream signature file foo-2.0.tar.gz.asc, this
watch file downloads these files, verifies the authenticity using the keyring
debian/upstream/signing-key.asc and creates the Debian orig.tar file foo_2.0.orig.tar.gz.
Here is another example for the basic single upstream tarball with the matching signature file on
decompressed tarball in the same file path.
version=4
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%@ARCHIVE_EXT@$%.asc%,decompress" \
http://example.com/release/@PACKAGE@.html \
files/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
For the upstream source package foo-2.0.tar.gz and the upstream signature file foo-2.0.tar.asc, this
watch file downloads these files, verifies the authenticity using the keyring
debian/upstream/signing-key.asc and creates the Debian orig.tar file foo_2.0.orig.tar.gz.
HTTP site (pgpmode=next/previous)
Here is an example for the basic single upstream tarball with the matching signature file in the
unrelated file path.
version=4
opts="pgpmode=next" http://example.com/release/@PACKAGE@.html \
files/(?:\d+)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian
opts="pgpmode=previous" http://example.com/release/@PACKAGE@.html \
files/(?:\d+)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@SIGNATURE_EXT@ previous
(?:\d+) part can be any random value. The tarball file can have 53, while the signature file can have
33.
([\d\.]+) part for the signature file has a strict requirement to match that for the upstream tarball
specified in the previous line by having previous as version in the watch line.
HTTP site (flexible)
Here is an example for the maximum flexibility of upstream tarball and signature file extensions.
version=4
opts="pgpmode=next" http://example.com/DL/ \
files/(?:\d+)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian
opts="pgpmode=previous" http://example.com/DL/ \
files/(?:\d+)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@SIGNATURE_EXT@ \
previous
HTTP site (basic MUT)
Here is an example for the basic multiple upstream tarballs.
version=4
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%" \
http://example.com/release/foo.html \
files/foo-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%, component=bar" \
http://example.com/release/foo.html \
files/foobar-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ same
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%, component=baz" \
http://example.com/release/foo.html \
files/foobaz-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ same
For the main upstream source package foo-2.0.tar.gz and the secondary upstream source packages
foobar-2.0.tar.gz and foobaz-2.0.tar.gz which install under bar/ and baz/, this watch file downloads and
creates the Debian orig.tar file foo_2.0.orig.tar.gz, foo_2.0.orig-bar.tar.gz and
foo_2.0.orig-baz.tar.gz. Also, these upstream tarballs are verified by their signature files.
HTTP site (recursive directory scanning)
Here is an example with the recursive directory scanning for the upstream tarball and its signature files
released in a directory named after their version.
version=4
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%, dirversionmangle=s/-PRE/~pre/;s/-RC/~rc/" \
http://tmrc.mit.edu/mirror/twisted/Twisted/@ANY_VERSION@/ \
Twisted-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Here, the web site should be accessible at the following URL:
http://tmrc.mit.edu/mirror/twisted/Twisted/
Here, dirversionmangle option is used to normalize the sorting order of the directory names.
HTTP site (alternative shorthand)
For the bare HTTP site where you can directly see archive filenames, the normal watch file:
version=4
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%" \
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Text/ \
Text-CSV_XS-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
can be rewritten in an alternative shorthand form only with a single string covering URL and filename:
version=4
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%" \
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Text/Text-CSV_XS-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
In version=4, initial white spaces are dropped. Thus, this alternative shorthand form can also be
written as:
version=4
opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%" \
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Text/\
Text-CSV_XS-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Please note the subtle difference of a space before the tailing \ between the first and the last
examples.
HTTP site (funny version)
For a site which has funny version numbers, the parenthesized groups will be joined with . (period) to
make a sanitized version number.
version=4
http://www.site.com/pub/foobar/foobar_v(\d+)_(\d+)@ARCHIVE_EXT@
HTTP site (DFSG)
The upstream part of the Debian version number can be mangled to indicate the source package was
repackaged to clean up non-DFSG files:
version=4
opts="dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg\d*$//,repacksuffix=+dfsg" \
http://some.site.org/some/path/foobar-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
See "COPYRIGHT FILE EXAMPLES" in uscan(1).
HTTP site (filenamemangle)
The upstream tarball filename is found by taking the last component of the URL and removing everything
after any '?' or '#'.
If this does not fit to you, use filenamemangle. For example, <A
href="http://foo.bar.org/dl/?path=&dl=foo-0.1.1.tar.gz"> could be handled as:
version=4
opts=filenamemangle=s/.*=(.*)/$1/ \
http://foo.bar.org/dl/\?path=&dl=foo-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
<A href="http://foo.bar.org/dl/?path=&dl_version=0.1.1"> could be handled as:
version=4
opts=filenamemangle=s/.*=(.*)/foo-$1\.tar\.gz/ \
http://foo.bar.org/dl/\?path=&dl_version=@ANY_VERSION@
If the href string has no version using <I>matching-pattern>, the version can be obtained from the full
URL using filenamemangle.
version=4
opts=filenamemangle=s&.*/dl/(.*)/foo\.tar\.gz&foo-$1\.tar\.gz& \
http://foo.bar.org/dl/@ANY_VERSION@/ foo.tar.gz
HTTP site (downloadurlmangle)
The option downloadurlmangle can be used to mangle the URL of the file to download. This can only be
used with http:// URLs. This may be necessary if the link given on the web page needs to be transformed
in some way into one which will work automatically, for example:
version=4
opts=downloadurlmangle=s/prdownload/download/ \
http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2051 \
http://prdownload.berlios.de/softdevice/vdr-softdevice-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
HTTP site (oversionmangle, MUT)
The option oversionmangle can be used to mangle the version of the source tarball (.orig.tar.gz and
.orig-bar.tar.gz). For example, +dfsg can be added to the upstream version as:
version=4
opts=oversionmangle=s/(.*)/$1+dfsg/ \
http://example.com/~user/release/foo.html \
files/foo-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian
opts="component=bar" \
http://example.com/~user/release/foo.html \
files/bar-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ same
See "COPYRIGHT FILE EXAMPLES" in uscan(1).
HTTP site (pagemangle)
The option pagemangle can be used to mangle the downloaded web page before applying other rules. The
non-standard web page without proper <a href=" << ... >> "> entries can be converted. For example, if
foo.html uses <a bogus=" ... ">, this can be converted to the standard page format with:
version=4
opts=pagemangle="s/<a\s+bogus=/<a href=/g" \
http://example.com/release/foo.html \
files/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Please note the use of g here to replace all occurrences.
If foo.html uses <Key> ... </Key>, this can be converted to the standard page format with:
version=4
opts="pagemangle=s%<Key>([^<]*)</Key>%<Key><a href="$1">$1</a></Key>%g" \
http://example.com/release/foo.html \
(?:.*)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
FTP site (basic):
version=4
ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/web/c_cpp/cweb/cweb-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
FTP site (regex special characters):
version=4
ftp://ftp.worldforge.org/pub/worldforge/libs/\
Atlas-C++/transitional/Atlas-C\+\+-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Please note that this URL is connected to be ... libs/Atlas-C++/ ... . For ++, the first one in the
directory path is verbatim while the one in the filename is escaped by \.
FTP site (funny version)
This is another way of handling site with funny version numbers, this time using mangling. (Note that
multiple groups will be concatenated before mangling is performed, and that mangling will only be
performed on the basename version number, not any path version numbers.)
version=4
opts="uversionmangle=s/^/0.0./" \
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/wine/\
development/Wine-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
sf.net
For SourceForge based projects, qa.debian.org runs a redirector which allows a simpler form of URL. The
format below will automatically be rewritten to use the redirector with the watch file:
version=4
https://sf.net/<project>/ <tar-name>-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
For audacity, set the watch file as:
version=4
https://sf.net/audacity/ audacity-minsrc-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Please note, you can still use normal functionalities of uscan to set up a watch file for this site
without using the redirector.
version=4
opts="uversionmangle=s/-pre/~pre/, \
filenamemangle=s%(?:.*)audacity-minsrc-(.+)\.tar\.xz/download%\
audacity-$1.tar.xz%" \
http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/files/audacity/@ANY_VERSION@/ \
(?:.*)audacity-minsrc-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@/download
Here, % is used as the separator instead of the standard /.
github.com
For GitHub based projects, you can use the releases or tags API page. If upstream releases properly
named tarballs on their releases page, you can search for the browser download URL (API key
browser_download_url):
version=4
opts=\
filenamemangle=s%.*/@ANY_VERSION@%@PACKAGE@-$1.tar.gz%,\
downloadurlmangle=s%(api.github.com/repos/[^/]+/[^/]+)/git/refs/%$1/tarball/refs/%g,\
searchmode=plain \
https://api.github.com/repos/<user>/<project>/git/matching-refs/tags/ \
https://api.github.com/repos/[^/]+/[^/]+/git/refs/tags/@ANY_VERSION@
It is also possible to filter tags by prefix. For example to get only tags starting by "v1":
version=4
opts=\
filenamemangle=s%.*/@ANY_VERSION@%@PACKAGE@-$1.tar.gz%,\
downloadurlmangle=s%(api.github.com/repos/[^/]+/[^/]+)/git/refs/%$1/tarball/refs/%g,\
searchmode=plain \
https://api.github.com/repos/<user>/<project>/git/matching-refs/tags/v1 \
https://api.github.com/repos/[^/]+/[^/]+/git/refs/tags/@ANY_VERSION@
Alternatives with releases only (if upstream does not delete tag after release):
version=4
opts=\
filenamemangle=s%.*/@ANY_VERSION@%@PACKAGE@-$1.tar.gz%,\
downloadurlmangle=s%api.github.com/repos/([^/]+/[^/]+)/git/refs/tags/@ANY_VERSION@%github.com/$1/archive/refs/tags/$2.tar.gz%g,\
searchmode=plain \
https://api.github.com/repos/<user>/<project>/git/matching-refs/tags/ \
https://api.github.com/repos/[^/]+/[^/]+/git/refs/tags/@ANY_VERSION@
In case of release that does not use tags or deleted tags:
version=4
opts="filenamemangle=s%.*/@ANY_VERSION@%@PACKAGE@-$1.tar.gz%,searchmode=plain" \
https://api.github.com/repos/<user>/<project>/releases?per_page=100 \
https://api.github.com/repos/<user>/<project>/tarball/@ANY_VERSION@
If upstream releases alpha/beta tarballs, you will need to make use of the uversionmangle option:
uversionmangle=s/(a|alpha|b|beta|c|dev|pre|rc)/~$1/
If upstream forget to tag a release for instance here the 1.2.3 version corresponding to commit
"0123456789abcdf01234567890abcef012345678", you could download it, using the following combination of
oversionmangle, filenamemangle, downloadurlmangle options:
version=4
opts=\
downloadurlmangle=s%(api.github.com/repos/[^/]+/[^/]+)/git/refs/.*%$1/tarball/0123456789abcdf01234567890abcef012345678%g,\
oversionmangle=s/.*/1.2.3~git/g,\
filenamemangle=s%.*%1.2.3~git.tar.gz%,\
searchmode=plain \
https://api.github.com/repos/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/git/matching-refs/tags/ \
https://api.github.com/repos/[^/]+/[^/]+/git/refs/tags/@ANY_VERSION@
Remember, in this case, after gbp import-orig --uscan to revert the debian/watch file.
Forgejo (Codeberg)
Releases with manually-attached tarballs (assets[...].browser_download_url):
version=4
opts=searchmode=plain \
https://codeberg.org/api/v1/repos/<user>/<project>/releases \
https://codeberg.org/<user>/<project>/releases/download/[^/-_v]*@ANY_VERSION@/[^"]*@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Releases with automatically-generated tarballs (tarball_url):
version=4
opts="filenamemangle=s%.*/[^"-_v]*@ANY_VERSION@%@PACKAGE@-$1%,searchmode=plain" \
https://codeberg.org/api/v1/repos/<user>/<project>/releases \
https://codeberg.org/<user>/<project>/archive/[^"-_v]*@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Tags with automatically-generated tarballs (tarball_url):
version=4
opts="filenamemangle=s%.*/[^"-_v]*@ANY_VERSION@%@PACKAGE@-$1%,searchmode=plain" \
https://codeberg.org/api/v1/repos/<user>/<project>/tags \
https://codeberg.org/<user>/<project>/archive/[^"-_v]*@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Replace codeberg.org with the Forgejo instance in question.
PyPI
For PyPI based projects, pypi.debian.net runs a redirector which allows a simpler form of URL. The format
below will automatically be rewritten to use the redirector with the watch file:
version=4
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/<initial>/<project>/ \
<tar-name>-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
For cfn-sphere, set the watch file as:
version=4
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/c/cfn-sphere/ \
cfn-sphere-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
Please note, you can still use normal functionalities of uscan to set up a watch file for this site
without using the redirector.
version=4
opts="pgpmode=none" \
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/cfn-sphere/ \
https://pypi.python.org/packages/.*/.*/.*/\
cfn-sphere-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@#.*
code.google.com
Sites which used to be hosted on the Google Code service should have migrated to elsewhere (github?).
Please look for the newer upstream site if available.
npmjs.org (node modules)
npmjs.org modules are published in JSON files. Here is a way to read them:
version=4
opts="searchmode=plain" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/aes-js \
https://registry.npmjs.org/aes-js/-/aes-js-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@
grouped package
Some node modules are split into multiple little upstream package. Here is a way to group them:
version=4
opts="searchmode=plain,pgpmode=none" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/mongodb \
https://registry.npmjs.org/mongodb/-/mongodb-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ group
opts="searchmode=plain,pgpmode=none,component=bson" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/bson \
https://registry.npmjs.org/bson/-/bson-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ group
opts="searchmode=plain,pgpmode=none,component=mongodb-core" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/mongodb-core \
https://registry.npmjs.org/mongodb-core/-/mongodb-core-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ group
opts="searchmode=plain,pgpmode=none,component=requireoptional" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/require_optional \
https://registry.npmjs.org/require_optional/-/require_optional-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ group
Package version is then the concatenation of upstream versions separated by "+~".
To avoid having a too long version, the "checksum" method can be used. In this case, the main source has
to be declared as "group":
version=4
opts="searchmode=plain,pgpmode=none" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/mongodb \
https://registry.npmjs.org/mongodb/-/mongodb-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ group
opts="searchmode=plain,pgpmode=none,component=bson" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/bson \
https://registry.npmjs.org/bson/-/bson-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ checksum
opts="searchmode=plain,pgpmode=none,component=mongodb-core" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/mongodb-core \
https://registry.npmjs.org/mongodb-core/-/mongodb-core-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ checksum
opts="searchmode=plain,pgpmode=none,component=requireoptional" \
https://registry.npmjs.org/require_optional \
https://registry.npmjs.org/require_optional/-/require_optional-@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ checksum
The "checksum" is made up of the separate sum of each number composing the component versions and
prefixed with ~cs (short for checksum). Following is an example with 3 components whose versions are
"1.2.4", "2.0.1" and "10.0", with the main tarball having version "2.0.6":
Main: 2.0.6
Comp1: 1 . 2 . 4
Comp2: 2 . 0 . 1
Comp3: 10 . 0
================================
Result : 1+2+10 . 2+0+0 . 4+1
Checksum: 13 . 2 . 5
================================
Final Version: 2.0.6+~cs13.2.5
uscan will also display the original version string before being encoded into the checksum, which can for
example be used in a debian/changelog entry to easily follow the changes:
2.0.6+~1.2.4+~2.0.1+~10.0
Note: This feature currently accepts only versions composed of digits and full stops (`.`).
direct access to the git repository (tags)
If the upstream only publishes its code via the git repository and its code has no web interface to
obtain the release tarball, you can use uscan with the tags of the git repository to track and package
the new upstream release.
version=4
opts="mode=git, gitmode=full, pgpmode=none" \
http://git.ao2.it/tweeper.git \
refs/tags/v@ANY_VERSION@
Please note "git ls-remote" is used to obtain references for tags.
If a tag v20.5 is the newest tag, the above example downloads spkg-20.5.tar.xz after making a full clone
of the git repository which is needed for dumb git server.
If tags are signed, set pgpmode=gittag to verify them.
direct access to the git repository (HEAD)
If the upstream only publishes its code via the git repository and its code has no web interface nor the
tags to obtain the released tarball, you can use uscan with the HEAD of the git repository to track and
package the new upstream release with an automatically generated version string.
version=4
opts="mode=git, pgpmode=none" \
https://github.com/Debian/dh-make-golang \
HEAD
Please note that a local shallow copy of the git repository is made with "git clone --bare --depth=1 ..."
normally in the target directory. uscan generates the new upstream version with "git log
--date=format:%Y%m%d --pretty=0.0~git%cd.%h" on this local copy of repository as its default behavior.
The generation of the upstream version string may the adjusted to your taste by adding pretty and date
options to the opts arguments.
direct access to the git repository (with submodules)
If the upstream only publishes its code via a git repository and the repository includes submodules, you
can use uscan with the tags or HEAD of the git repository to track and package the new upstream release.
Use gitmodules to clone all submodules:
version=4
opts="mode=git, gitmode=shallow, gitmodules" \
https://github.com/namespace/project [refs/tags/v@ANY_VERSION@|HEAD]
To clone selected submodules (and exclude others), use gitmodules with a semicolon-separated list:
version=4
opts="mode=git, gitmode=shallow, gitmodules=m4;doc/common" \
https://github.com/namespace/project [refs/tags/v@ANY_VERSION@|HEAD]
direct access to the Subversion repository (tags)
If the upstream only publishes its code via the Subversion repository and its code has no web interface
to obtain the release tarball, you can use uscan with the tags of the Subversion repository to track and
package the new upstream release.
version=4
opts="mode=svn, pgpmode=none" \
svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/jmol/code/tags/ \
@ANY_VERSION@\/
direct access to the Subversion repository (HEAD)
If the upstream only publishes its code via the Subversion repository and its code has no web interface
to obtain the release tarball, you can use uscan to get the most recent source of a subtree in the
repository with an automatically generated version string.
version=4
opts="mode=svn, pgpmode=none" \
svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/jmol/code/trunk/ \
HEAD
By default, uscan generates the new upstream version by appending the revision number to "0.0~svn". This
can later be changed using filenamemangle.
Fossil
For Fossil based projects, the tarball URL can be deduced from the taglist page.
version=4
opts=" \
searchmode=plain, \
filenamemangle=s/timeline\?t=(@ANY_VERSION@)/@PACKAGE@-$1.tar.gz/, \
downloadurlmangle=s#/timeline\?t=(@ANY_VERSION@)#/tarball/Grammalecte.tar.gz?r=$1#" \
http://grammalecte.net:8080/taglist \
/timeline\?t=@ANY_VERSION@
SEE ALSO
uscan(1), mk-origtargz(1), perlre(1), uupdate(1), devscripts.conf(5)
AUTHOR
The original version of uscan was written by Christoph Lameter <clameter@debian.org>. Significant
improvements, changes and bugfixes were made by Julian Gilbey <jdg@debian.org>. HTTP support was added by
Piotr Roszatycki <dexter@debian.org>. The program was rewritten in Perl by Julian Gilbey. Xavier Guimard
converted it in object-oriented Perl using Moo.
Debian Utilities 2025-09-02 DEBIAN-WATCH-4(5)