NAME
dpkg-mergechangelogs - 3-way merge of debian/changelog files
SYNOPSIS
dpkg-mergechangelogs [option...] old new-a new-b [out]
DESCRIPTION
This program will use the 3 provided versions of the Debian changelog
to generate a merged changelog file. The resulting changelog is stored
in the file out or output to the standard output if that parameter is
not given.
Each entry is identified by its version number and they are assumed to
be not conflicting, they are simply merged in the right order (by
decreasing version number). When --merge-prereleases is used, the part
of the version number after the last tilde is dropped so that
1.0-1~exp1 and 1.0-1~exp5 are considered to be the same entry. When the
same version is available in both new-a and new-b, a standard line-
based 3-way merge is attempted (provided that the module
Algorithm::Merge is available -- it's part of the package libalgorithm-
merge-perl -- otherwise you get a global conflict on the content of the
entry).
OPTIONS
--merge-prereleases, -m
Drop the part after the last tilde in the version number when
doing version comparison to identify if two entries are supposed
to be the same or not.
This is useful when you keep using the same changelog entry but
you increase its version number regularly. For instance, you
might have 2.3-1~exp1, 2.3-1~exp2, ... until the official
release 2.3-1 and they are all the same changelog entry that has
evolved over time.
--help Show the usage message and exit.
--version
Show the version and exit.
LIMITATIONS
Anything that is not parsed by Dpkg::Changelog is lost during the
merge. This might include stuff like vim modelines, comments which
were not supposed to be there, etc.
INTEGRATION WITH GIT
If you want to use this program to merge Debian changelog files in a
git repository, you have first to register a new merge driver in
.git/config or ~/.gitconfig:
[merge "dpkg-mergechangelogs"]
name = debian/changelog merge driver
driver = dpkg-mergechangelogs -m %O %A %B %A
Then you have to setup the merge attribute for the debian/changelog
file either in .gitattributes in the repository itself, or in
.git/info/attributes:
debian/changelog merge=dpkg-mergechangelogs
AUTHOR
Copyright (C) 2009-2010 Raphael Hertzog
This is free software; see the GNU General Public Licence version 2 or
later for copying conditions. There is NO WARRANTY.