Chapter C. Source packages (from old Packaging Manual)

116

If such a line exists then

dpkg parsechangelog

will look for the parser as

/usr/lib

/dpkg/parsechangelog/

format name

or

/usr/local/lib/dpkg/parsechangelog

/

format name

; it is an error for it not to find it, or for it not to be an executable program.

The default changelog format is

dpkg

, and a parser for it is provided with the

dpkg

package.

The parser will be invoked with the changelog open on standard input at the start of the file.

It should read the file (it may seek if it wishes) to determine the information required and

return the parsed information to standard output in the form of a series of control fields in the

standard format. By default it should return information about only the most recent version

in the changelog; it should accept a

 v

version

option to return changes information from all

versions present strictly after version, and it should then be an error for version not to be present

in the changelog.

The fields are:

Source

Version

(mandatory)

Distribution

(mandatory)

Urgency

(mandatory)

Maintainer

(mandatory)

Date

Changes

(mandatory)

If several versions are being returned (due to the use of

 v

), the urgency value should be

of the highest urgency code listed at the start of any of the versions requested followed by

the concatenated (space separated) comments from all the versions requested; the maintainer,

version, distribution and date should always be from the most recent version.

For the format of the

Changes

field see `

Changes

' on page

36

.

If the changelog format which is being parsed always or almost always leaves a blank line

between individual change notes these blank lines should be stripped out, so as to make the

resulting output compact.

If the changelog format does not contain date or package name information this information

should be omitted from the output. The parser should not attempt to synthesize it or find it

from other sources.

If the changelog does not have the expected format the parser should exit with a nonzero exit

status, rather than trying to muddle through and possibly generating incorrect output.

A changelog parser may not interact with the user at all.

C.2.3

debian/substvars

and variable substitutions

See `Variable substitutions:

debian/substvars

' on page

26

.

C.2.4

debian/files

See `Generated files list:

debian/files

' on page

26

.