How to view release notes / changelog with pacman

Question

Like many fellow archers, I use pacman to update my software each day. Often there are updates like this:

foo-1.1 ---> foo.1.2

I wonder if there's a way to see what has been updated from foo-1.1 to foo-1.2 or release notes explaining bug fixes or new features etc. Something like pacman -Log foo.

found it:https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=70557 – McBear Holden Apr 23 '11 at 20:21 — McBear Holden, Apr 23 '11 at 20:21

score 24 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 28 '11 at 18:57

24

From the manual:

QUERY OPTIONS
   -c, --changelog
       View the ChangeLog of a package. Not every package will provide one but it will be shown if available.

So, if you wanted the changelog for the vim package, for example, you would do: pacman -Qc vim.

answered Aug 28 '11 at 18:57

Ryan A.

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Yep, I've found that some don't have the change logs. I have a feeling it's mostly luck and maybe the popularity of the package. – Ryan A. Sep 02 '11 at 13:38
3

@RyanA. ;) right *popularity* it must be. Event that *obscure* package `linux-X.xx.x-x` comes without change log, maybe it is not popular enough? – humanityANDpeace Apr 20 '18 at 10:44

score 8 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 14 '22 at 21:26

8

A better solution would be to use pacolog, which at least shows you the package commits, e.g.pacolog -l 3 vim

edited Jun 14 '22 at 21:26

matan h

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1
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answered May 04 '18 at 07:19

ohli

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1

1

[pacolog is on Gitlab](https://gitlab.com/protist/pacolog) nowadays. Dropped the link here in case the repo on Github ever disappears. – Fernando Basso May 14 '22 at 12:02
pacolog is in AUR – Acceptable Name Apr 17 '23 at 09:03

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 17 '23 at 09:25

You can use asp checkout pkgname and git diff ... to see what happened.

Example:

$ asp checkout grub
$ cd grub
$ git log
[...hashes are displayed in the log...]
$ git diff 7d756cac35c2c9e433f7b32dda580cb896e75bbd 860fbf55a3856684bde4cbf79b92fb82f10a68bd
diff --git a/trunk/PKGBUILD b/trunk/PKGBUILD
index 3cb944a..83b9675 100644
--- a/trunk/PKGBUILD
+++ b/trunk/PKGBUILD
@@ -18,8 +18,8 @@ _GRUB_EMU_BUILD="0"
 pkgname='grub'
 pkgdesc='GNU GRand Unified Bootloader (2)'
 epoch=2
-_commit='65bc45963014773e2062ccc63ff34a089d2e352e'
-_pkgver=2.06.r456.g65bc45963
+_commit='e67a551a48192a04ab705fca832d82f850162b64'
+_pkgver=2.06.r499.ge67a551a4
 _unifont_ver='15.0.01'
 pkgver=${_pkgver/-/}
 pkgrel=1
@@ -84,7 +84,6 @@ _configure_options=(
        PACKAGE_VERSION="${epoch}:${pkgver}-${pkgrel}"
        FREETYPE="pkg-config freetype2"
        BUILD_FREETYPE="pkg-config freetype2"
-       --enable-mm-debug
        --enable-nls
        --enable-device-mapper
        --enable-cache-stats

How to view release notes / changelog with pacman

3 Answers3