[solved] what happened to ChangeLog for packages?

deefster · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 77

/usr/portage/category/package/ChangeLog files no longer seem to exist

as a result

equery changes -l <package> no longer seems to work

fturco · Veteran Joined: 08 Dec 2010 Posts: 1181

Same here. The following command returns nothing:

fedeliallalinea · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 1:40 pm Post subject:

Point 3 of this announce
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Tony0945 · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 1:51 pm Post subject:

fedeliallalinea · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 2:47 pm Post subject:

firephoto · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2016 5:28 pm Post subject:

What is going to be the proper method of reading changelogs while updating a system for the default configuration of using rsync for the portage tree?

I ran into this the other day and any attempts to make the rsync module for the new home of the changelogs work.. doesn't.

packages.gentoo.org rss feed used to have the changes but this went away when the git move first happened. Even if you use git to sync you have to change to each git repo to read the logs.

What is so bad about changelogs?
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deefster · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 77

I agree, there should be a reasonable replacement. It seems they haven't really officially even announced it, which is more strange given the old method is already gone. In any case, thanks to those who answered my original question, marked thread as solved.

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2016 2:53 pm Post subject:

I think it's a case of "Why do you care why we made a change? Just do what we say!"

Genone · Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2016 3:17 pm Post subject:

firephoto · Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2016 3:57 pm Post subject:

Genone · Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 9:41 am Post subject:

I agree that it appears to be rushed quite a bit and not coordinated very well. I just remembered that we discussed removing Changelogs many years ago for the listed reasons, particulary lack of use as in most cases you had to check VCS history or upstream changelog anyway to figure out the actually relevant changes. Now that git is firmly in place I guess someone decided it's finally time to pursue this.

firephoto · Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 9:06 pm Post subject:

rogerx · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 118

--- Snip ---
Approximately 2016/Nov/01, a new module will be available:
- rsync.gentoo.org::gentoo-repo-changelog
--- Snip ---

/etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf
[gentoo-changelogs]
location = /tmp/portage
sync-type = rsync
sync-uri = rsync://rsync.us.gentoo.org/gentoo-repo-changelog
#sync-uri = rsync.gentoo.org::gentoo-repo-changelog

# emaint sync -r gentoo-changelogs

Neither sync-uri's appear to work as of 2016.12.24. Shrugs...

Personally, I think each package should still contain a Changelog per GNU coding standards. People who do not comment their code are usually just lazy, and stripping the Changelog file now leaves most end users stumped when fixing bugs or wondering as to why a "package_name-r4.ebuild" release version was made. Users now have to diff -urN file-1.ebuild file-2.ebuild, and likely most changes do not include any comments alongside more difficult to read sections. (eg. Insert your most favorite non-readable and undocumented sed or regex match here, along with any rarely utilized scripting concoction.) So instead of simply scanning a ChangeLog file for pertinent changes, end users now need to perform several more steps, hindering debugging for most if not everybody now. And as I further think on this, pushing changelogs within a separate tree are just likely going to minimize the importance of changelog documentation internally. ... but maybe I'm wrong and things are now more easier. Have yet to see the rsync gentoo-repo-changelog tree.
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Cyker · Veteran Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 1746

Hi,

Just came from https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1057352.html

Is there any word or update on what's happening with this?

It's making my life that much more difficult trying to resolve problems due to package changes because this is literally the only place any of that sort of thing is documented without having to spend hours trawling through bgo.

What even is the reason for removing them? They contained genuinely useful pieces of information for people like me that have custom setups.

It makes no sense!

khayyam · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 10:15 am Post subject:

rogerx · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 118

mmm... I'm in agreement with the last posts as well.

The only other rational besides taking up space, the Change Log data are now apparently incorporated with each git ebuild commit (with likely even shorter comments), preventing duplicate entries within a Change Log? And inherently having the end user having to sed/awk through the large git log?
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khayyam · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 5:49 pm Post subject:

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

Oddly enough you *do* get the ChangeLog{,-2015} files in webrsync tarballs, but they're out of date which leaves `equery changes` in a worse than useless state - it's actively misleading.

rogerx · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 118

Still no change on this, for a method of checking a change log on a specific package ebuild?

I currently have broken package(s) and need to check the ebuild's date of creation/introduction.

The only current method is by using the release date of the source package, but this is extremely inaccurate as an ebuild could have been more recently published, using an older package version.

This is my first step when tracking ebuild related bugs, or monitoring newer published ebuilds. Without being able to check these dates or check the notes possibly related to the bug, I am (as well as many others) are left to resorting to only filing a bug first, with the opened bug likely lacking much more information than in the past.
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miket · Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:25 am Post subject:

rogerx · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 118

Thanks you.

Just what I needed to know.
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20589

*sigh*

So is there no way to read the changes from the command line?
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ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

I don't think there is a way if you are using rsync to sync the tree, if you use git to sync the tree; you should be able to use the git log command from the portage tree (recommend using -p 5 to limit to the last 5 messages, otherwise prints all). My default, git log command, lists the commit messages in reverse chronological order.
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Viewing-the-Commit-History

Update: I was slightly wrong on the -p 2 portion. The -p shows the file changes along with the commit message. To just limit the number of messages, you only need to use -5 (where 5 is the number of messages).

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20589

Thanks.

I wonder how many non-programming users know or care to learn git.
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ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

Alas the most we can do is work with the tools we have, or get someone to make a new tool for them to use.

I was going to mention that someone could possibly make a small hook in the postsync to generate a log file, but it seems git has no way of pulling the log from a remote tree without downloading the repository first. Everything I was seeing on a quick search says the same thing you can only use git log on your copy only (hence you have to fetch from remote first) or use the git website to view the logs.