Pacman changelogs

rh995 · 2014-09-18 03:30:06

I am aware that pacman has the -Qc option, but this is rarely implemented by the packager. However, every package has a very verbose list of changes available, just not through pacman. The Arch svn repository has detailed information about every package, only available through the web interface (click View Changes from within the web page about the package). I think it would be very great if this information was visible from within pacman itself, possibly replacing the changelog feature, as it seems that very few developers use that. All that would have to be done would be to get pacman to fetch the svn commit log, and display that to the user in a nice format. Are there any other thoughts on this?

amish · 2014-09-18 03:39:39

Since Arch mostly uses vanila packages (i.e. unchanged source).

Most changes in "View changes" is like this "upgpkg: PKGNAME PKGVERSION"

So its not going to help as most end users dont want to know this. (pacman already shows what version new package is)

Better idea is developer give link to changelog of upstream, which pacman can fetch and display.

May be PKGBUILD can have entry like:
ChangelogURL=http://example.com/src/$pkgname/$pkgver/changelog

Last edited by amish (2014-09-18 03:44:22)

rh995 · 2014-09-18 03:47:06

I see your point.

The only negative thing I can think about your suggestion is that every package would have to be updated to add the url, but I think it would be a very nice feature if it were implemented. Every time I update my system I am curious as to what I am getting

lucke · 2014-09-18 03:56:03

You might be interested in https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pkgcl/.

Allan · 2014-09-18 10:52:35

Arch developers got bored of this feature.

Also, anything Arch specific (such as reading from Arch SVN) will be rejected by pacman developers.

amish · 2014-09-18 12:24:48

Sorry for being completely unaware but is pacman different from Arch? I thought pacman was mainly centered at Arch and some other distros picked it up.

But in anycase atleast PKGBUILD file can have link to "upstream" changelog as I suggested in previous post.

Atleast that will stop many people from asking for this feature.

Most GUI terminals support auto-detection of text with links and users just need to click on it if they want to read changelog.

Last edited by amish (2014-09-18 12:25:04)

karol · 2014-09-18 16:13:27

pacman is used even on FreeBSD.

What if the upstream changelog is only posted on a website?

Arch Linux

#1 2014-09-18 03:30:06

Pacman changelogs

#2 2014-09-18 03:39:39

Re: Pacman changelogs

#3 2014-09-18 03:47:06

Re: Pacman changelogs

#4 2014-09-18 03:56:03

Re: Pacman changelogs

#5 2014-09-18 10:52:35

Re: Pacman changelogs

#6 2014-09-18 12:24:48

Re: Pacman changelogs

#7 2014-09-18 16:13:27

Re: Pacman changelogs

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