Viewing changes included with package updates?

[TimRegeant]

How are you guys keeping up with what has changed between versions when packages get updated?

For instance, 'xbps-install -nuM' might indicate there are packages to update. But how to see the changelogs for each of the packages without manually going to every package home page?

Is there a tool or resource that can show these?

[classabbyamp]

in the package xtools, there is a tool xchangelog that will try to display the changelog url in your terminal, falling back to a web browser

[Duncaen]

There are no per package changelogs like there are in debian, xchangelog will use the packages changelog property (xbps-query -p changelog pkgname), which will point to the upstream changelog url (not available for every package though).

[TimRegeant]

Thanks guys. I must admit I am a bit surprised there is no built-in providence for the update system. I think being able to see the changes for packages before updating would be a good feature for an xtools program.

As for xchangelog, I did not have much luck with it. When I checked for instance 'xchangelog bash' it returns 'No such template'. So xdistdir returns '/var/cache/xbps'. In '/var/cache/xbps/' there is:
bash-5.3_1.x86_64.xbps
bash-5.3_1.x86_64.xbps.sig2
bash-completion-2.14.0_1.x86_64.xbps
bash-completion-2.14.0_1.x86_64.xbps.sig2
bash-completion-2.16.0_1.x86_64.xbps
bash-completion-2.16.0_1.x86_64.xbps.sig2

If I run 'xchangelog /var/cache/xbps/bash-5.3_1.x86_64.xbps' it returns:
/usr/bin/xchangelog: line 21: .: /var/cache/xbps/bash-5.3_1.x86_64.xbps: cannot execute binary file
No changelog defined in template

So I guess xchangelog not meant to run against .xbps packages which means it needs the void-source package tree installed locally?

[classabbyamp]

right, I forgot xchangelog only looks at the package templates. leahneukirchen/xtools#345 should fix that. like most xbps-related tools, it takes a package name, not a package file.

not sure how you got xdistdir to return /var/cache/xbps (short of setting XBPS_DISTDIR), but that's supposed to be a checkout of this repository, not the xbps package cache.

[TimRegeant]

yes, I did set XBPS-DISTDIR since when I first ran xchangelog it complained:

xchangelog bash
xdistdir: can't find your void-packages tree, giving up
xdistdir: please export XBPS_DISTDIR=/path/to/void-packages

I didn't realize it worked on templates until I looked at the script, but I had already set XBPS_DISTDIR to my package directory and forgot to unset it.

Is there a way to check templates on the repository before I update my local packages other than manually going to each package page and looking at the template and following links there - rinse and repeat?

I guess that is the whole point of why I posted this thread - conveniently being able to see the package changes before adding them into my system. Thanks!

[classabbyamp]

the PR i linked makes xchangelog use package metadata as a fallback if there's no templates available