Should use Launchpad changelog

[Bruce Cowan]

Quite often, the changelog of a package is "The list of changes is not available yet. Please try again later.". This isn't very useful. The changelog file could be downloaded from Launchpad, as it is not on the main archive yet.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Last time I looked there was no changelog information available via launchpad. This may have changed though. If it has, please point me to a url with a example changelog.

Cheers,
 Michael

[Bruce Cowan (bruce89-deactivatedaccount)]

Here is the URL for a changelog. It is for hplip:
http://librarian.launchpad.net/2108145/hplip_0.9.6-1ubuntu8_amd64.changes, which reads:

Format: 1.7
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 08:06:24 +0000
Source: hplip
Binary: hpijs hplip-data hplip-ppds hplip
Architecture: amd64
Version: 0.9.6-1ubuntu8
Distribution: autobuild
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Ubuntu/amd64 Build Daemon <email address hidden>
Changed-By: Matthias Klose <email address hidden>
Description:
 hpijs - HP Linux Printing and Imaging - gs IJS driver (hpijs)
 hplip - HP Linux Printing and Imaging System (HPLIP)
Changes:
 hplip (0.9.6-1ubuntu8) dapper; urgency=low
 .
   * Fix symlink in /usr/share/cups/model.
Files:
 d7a5498b600a3603455cc0cf1fd8bc75 293900 utils optional hpijs_2.1.6+0.9.6-1ubuntu8_amd64.deb
 a0ef8a871dea41b0b6b884ea99b16ab9 470726 utils optional hplip_0.9.6-1ubuntu8_amd64.deb

I am sure that this is a standard changelog file. The bit in the URL with the number init must be the date or something, that might a difficult bit to impllement.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

It maybe impossible to implement this until launchpad offeres access to those changelogs via the version number.

[Bruce Cowan (bruce89-deactivatedaccount)]

There is some discussion into this at Bug #30817

[Celso Providelo (cprov)]

Bruce,

The bug #30817 isn't really related to this issue.

If I got your request correctly you claim about the changelog unavailability, let's check the hplip correspondent treated source changelog : https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+source/hplip/+changelog

BTW, what you pointed is a binary changelog, generated by our buildfarm when it builds a binary package, and the number in url is how our file storage system works, it's an id, which can be easily obtained due according storage relations.

I guess what you want is in that url I've pointed you, hope it helps.

[Celso Providelo (cprov)]

Michael,
We can discuss a solution to obtain the changelog info from LP in the update-manager when it's needed.
Something more reliable than HTTP reading, maybe fresh XMLRPC approach. Feel free to start the discussion.

[Bruce Cowan (bruce89-deactivatedaccount)]

The problem that I see is that you would need just the changelog and also all of it, not just the latest changes. What I meant was for update-manager, and possibly apt, aptitude and synaptic to get the changelog file from launchpad as opposed to the ubuntu archive, as it is usually not on the archive yet.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Hi Celso,

I would love to use lp for this. For now I would be fine with the raw changelog available via http (or https).

The problem with the current available information (e.g. https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+source/gksu/+changelog)
is that it isn't raw text (as the original changelog) and that it seems to only include a single changelog entry (or rather, the changelog from the last version befrore the upload).

But this is not high priority and won't make it for dapper.

Cheers,
 Michael

[Marco Rodrigues (gothicx)]

How about to use this:

http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/g/gqview/gqview_2.0.4-0ubuntu1/changelog

It's more easy to implement..

[Marco Rodrigues (gothicx)]

Hi!

With this changelog in text, you can do it more easily... just check the package name (gqview_2.0.4-0ubuntu1), get the first letter of it and where is comes from (main, multiverse, universe).. and it's done.

Something like this:
http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/%s/%s/gqview/%s/changelog

[Bruce Cowan (bruce89-deactivatedaccount)]

I just had an idea. If a changelog is not found at changelogs.ubuntu.com, it falls back to Launchpad.

Mabye using Launchpad for this is silly, all that needs done is to have up-to-date changelogs appearing at changelogs.ubuntu.com.

[Bruce Cowan (bruce89-deactivatedaccount)]

I don't see how this is a duplicate of Bug #13707.

This is a bug concerning the fact that changelogs aren't uploaded fast enough to changelogs.ubuntu.com.

[Helge Stenström (h-stenstrom)]

I took the freedom to remove the duplicate link to Bug #13707, since they are unrelated.