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).

       This program was introduced in dpkg 1.15.7.

OPTIONS

       --merge-unreleased
           Ignore the version number when the entries are marked as UNRELEASED (since dpkg 1.21.0).

           This is useful when you have diverging development for versions that have not yet been released.  For
           instance  2.1-1  is released, then development happens for the new 2.2-1 and then for 2.3-1, where it
           makes sense to just end with a coalesced entry for 2.3-1 including all the development done in 2.2-1.

       -m, --merge-prereleases
           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.

ENVIRONMENT

       DPKG_COLORS
           Sets  the  color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5).  The currently accepted values are: auto (default), always
           and never.

       DPKG_NLS
           If set, it will be used to decide  whether  to  activate  Native  Language  Support,  also  known  as
           internationalization  (or  i18n)  support  (since  dpkg  1.19.0).   The  accepted values are: 0 and 1
           (default).

LIMITATIONS

       Anything that is not parsed by Dpkg::Changelog is lost during the merge.  This might include  stuff  like
       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

1.22.6                                             2024-07-17                            dpkg-mergechangelogs(1)