On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 03:59:36PM +0000, David Miguel Susano Pinto wrote: > Package: debhelper > Version: 11.3.5 > Severity: normal > > Debian policy version 4.2.0 added the following change (excerpt from > the Upgrade checklist): > > Upstream release notes, when available, should be installed as > /usr/share/doc/package/NEWS.gz. Upstream changelogs may be made > available as /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.gz. > > which seems to have steamed from the discussion in Debian bug #459427. > [snip] > I'm unsure the best way to address this issue with my short experience > as packager. My suggestion would be to look for files named: > > 1 news > 2 history > 3 changes > 4 changelog > > in that order. The first file found becomes the NEWS file and the > second becomes the changelog. This assumes that if there is only one > of them, it will be a release notes type of file, while still enabling > the two types. > > I have taken a quick look at the source of dh_installchangelogs and > this seems a doable change.
Hmm, dh_installchangelogs already looks for files with various names
when looking for an upstream changelog, and I've actually had many
different names for those in the packages I maintain (*.txt, *.md, no
extension at all, *wild* variations in capitalization, not to mention
the base name - changes, changelog, release-notes, news...).
I wonder if it might be a good idea to implement David's suggestion, but
with a slight twist: allow the autodetection of the "upstream release
notes" file (as opposed to "upstream changelog") to be overridden,
possibly in several ways, in order of increasing precedence:
- the standard dh_installchangelogs list of names to search, modified as
per David's suggestion: the first one found is NEWS, the next one is
changelog
- something specified by the debhelper build system module
- something specified in a debian/* file, e.g. debian/pkgname.notes or
something, not sure what would be a good name
- something specified on the dh_installchangelogs command line, e.g. by
a new command-line option
This would cover several cases:
- for many packages, no change in the package itself would DTRT as per
David's suggestion
- for some build systems, e.g. the ones related to Perl modules,
debhelper's build system code would say "Changes goes to NEWS, no
changelog by default"
- for some software groups, the Debian maintainers will be able to do
a small packaging change: add a single-line debian/pkgname.something
file instead of modifying the rules file
- for the outliers, there would be a way for the package maintainer to
specify the weird filename for the upstream release notes file as
a command-line option to dh_installchangelogs
So what do people think?
G'luck,
Peter
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