NAME
watchupstream - Look for newer upstream releases
SYNOPSIS
watchupstream [ options ] [ packagename ... ]
DESCRIPTION
The program watchupstream is a command line tool that uses uscan and
debian/watch files to see whether there are newer upstream releases for
a selection of Debian packages. The output on standard output is human
readable but also easy to parse by scripts. No need to have the Debian
packages installed; any Debian package can be queried.
The program does some caching, so it should be OK to use watchupstream
frequently in crontab for a reasonable number of packages. Hint: start
with a low number of packages.
There are three ways for selecting packages to be queried. One, using
the package selection options documented below, two, by enumerating
package names on the command line separated by spaces, and three, by
reading package names from standard input.
The package names can be read from standard input in three formats.
Format A is simply a list of package names, one name per line. Format
B is the output of a previous run of watchupstream. Format C is a list
of watch files. In formats B and C only the package names are used,
the rest is ignored.
The package names can be binary and/or source package names. The
program watchupstream looks up the source package names for the given
binary package names, and continues with only the resulting list of
source package names.
Missing debian/watch files can be added and bad debian/watch files can
be overridden without modifying the Debian package. Simply put your
watch file named sourcepackagename.watch in the directory
~/.watchupstream/watchfiles and this watch file will be used instead of
the debian/watch in the package.
OPTIONS
Options for selecting packages to be queried:
--packre=regularexpression
Use the given regular expression on binary and source package
names to select packages to be queried.
--maintre=regularexpression
Use the given regular expression on the "Maintainer:" field to
select packages to be queried.
--uploadre=regularexpression
Use the given regular expression on the "Uploaders:" field to
select packages to be queried.
--maintuploadre=regularexpression
Use the given regular expression on the "Maintainer:" and
"Uploaders:" fields to select packages to be queried.
--installed
Select all packages that are installed on the local system.
--all Select all packages known in Debian.
Options related to caching of query results:
--nocache
Perform the queries without returning cached results.
--noextract
Perform the queries without trying to extract debian/watch files
from .diff.gz files.
--cacheonly
Perform the queries with only returning cached results.
--forget
Don’t perform any query and remove the cached results for the
selected packages. This option also deletes the file
~/.watchupstream/watchfiles/packagename.watch for each selected
package.
--input
Don’t perform any query and accept lines read from standard
input as valid results. The lines read from standard input must
be in format B, see above.
Various other options:
--export
Export the watch files to
~/.watchupstream/watchfiles/packagename.watch for each of the
selected packages, except for watch files that produce the
result "unknown". This option implies the option --nocache.
--try=url
Try to create a watch file automatically using the given url.
This option implies the options --nocache and --export.
--sid=dist
Some prefer "unstable" in their /etc/apt/sources.list while
other prefer "sid". With this option, the user can specify
his/her preference. Default "sid".
EXAMPLES
watchupstream --packre=’xslt.*-perl$’
watchupstream --maintre=niebur
watchupstream < sponsoredpackages.txt
watchupstream qiv --try=http://spiegl.de/qiv/download/
watchupstream gtans
--try=http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtans/files/gtans/1.1/gtans-1.1.tar.gz/download
watchupstream acct --try=http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/acct/acct-6.3.tar.gz
watchupstream gmp --try=ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gmp/
ls ~/.watchupstream/watchfiles/*.watch|watchupstream
SEE ALSO
uscan(1).
August 19, 2007