Ubuntu Manpage: apt-listchanges — Show new changelog entries from Debian package archives

Provided by: apt-listchanges_2.85.13ubuntu2_all

NAME

       apt-listchanges — Show new changelog entries from Debian package archives

SYNOPSIS

       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.

       Given a set of filenames as arguments (or read from apt when using --apt), apt-listchanges will scan  the
       files (assumed to be Debian package archives) for the relevant changelog entries, and display them all in
       a summary, sorted by urgency.

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.

mail 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.

       Example configuration file

       [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

AUTHOR

       apt-listchanges was written by Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>