Peter Pentchev: > 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. >>
Hi, Thanks for the bug report and the suggestions. > [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. > Would you be willing to try to implement this change in debhelper? :) Note that in git master, there is now a CONTRIBUTING.rst to help you get started (https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debhelper/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.rst). I am unsure of whether this needs to be done in a new compat level (FTR compat 12 is expected in Debian Buster). I am open to reasons for either way. > 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: > [...] > > So what do people think? > > G'luck, > Peter > I would properly skip the ".notes" file, but otherwise it looks fine (you can still use the command line). The build system provided variant is a nice idea, but it is a lot more involved (as you need some way of passing data between helpers which is generally an unsolved problem in debhelper). I think it is better to start off slowly with the initial changes David suggested and then add the build system later. Thanks, ~Niels
