debrelease is a simple wrapper around dupload or
dput. It is called from within the source code tree of a
package, and figures out the current version of a package. It then
looks for the corresponding .changes file (which lists the files
needed to upload in order to release the package) in the parent
directory of the source code tree and calls dupload or
dput with the .changes file as parameter in order to
perform the actual uploading.
Options may be given to debrelease; except for the ones listed
below, they are passed on unchanged to dupload or dput.
The devscripts configuration files are also read by
debrelease as described below.
Directory name checking
In common with several other scripts in the devscripts package,
debrelease will climb the directory tree until it finds a
debian/changelog file. As a safeguard against stray files
causing potential problems, it will examine the name of the parent
directory once it finds the debian/changelog file, and check
that the directory name corresponds to the package name. Precisely
how it does this is controlled by two configuration file variables
DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL and DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX, and
their corresponding command-line options --check-dirname-level
and --check-dirname-regex.
DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL can take the following values:
0
Never check the directory name.
1
Only check the directory name if we have had to change directory in
our search for debian/changelog. This is the default behaviour.
2
Always check the directory name.
The directory name is checked by testing whether the current directory
name (as determined by pwd(1)) matches the regex given by the
configuration file option DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX or by the
command line option --check-dirname-regexregex. Here
regex is a Perl regex (see perlre(3perl)), which will be
anchored at the beginning and the end. If regex contains a '/',
then it must match the full directory path. If not, then it must
match the full directory name. If regex contains the string
'PACKAGE', this will be replaced by the source package name, as
determined from the changelog. The default value for the regex is:
'PACKAGE(-.*)?', thus matching directory names such as PACKAGE and
PACKAGE-version.
OPTIONS
--dupload, --dput
This specifies which uploader program to use; the default is
dupload.
-S
If this option is used, or the default .changes file is
not found but a source-only .changes file is present, then this
source-only .changes file will be uploaded instead of an
arch-specific one.
-adebian-architecture, -tGNU-system-type
See dpkg-architecture(1) for a description of these options.
They affect the search for the .changes file. They are provided
to mimic the behaviour of dpkg-buildpackage when determining the
name of the .changes file. If a plain -t is given, it is
taken to be the dupload host-specifying option, and therefore
signifies the end of the debrelease-specific options.
--multi
Multiarch changes mode: This signifies that debrelease should
use the most recent file with the name pattern
package_version_*+*.changes as the changes file, allowing for the
changes files produced by dpkg-cross.
--debs-dirDIR
Look for the .changes and .deb files in directory
DIR instead of the parent of the source directory. This should
either be an absolute path or relative to the top of the source
directory.
--check-dirname-levelN
See the above section "Directory name checking" for an explanation of
this option.
--check-dirname-regexregex
See the above section "Directory name checking" for an explanation of
this option.
--no-conf, --noconf
Do not read any configuration files. This can only be used as the
first option given on the command-line.
--help, -h
Display a help message and exit successfully.
--version
Display version and copyright information and exit successfully.
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
The two configuration files /etc/devscripts.conf and
~/.devscripts are sourced in that order to set configuration
variables. Command line options can be used to override configuration
file settings. Environment variable settings are ignored for this
purpose. The currently recognised variables are:
DEBRELEASE_UPLOADER
The currently recognised values are dupload and dput, and
it specifies which uploader program should be used. It corresponds to
the --dupload and --dput command line options.
DEBRELEASE_DEBS_DIR
This specifies the directory in which to look for the .changes
and .deb files, and is either an absolute path or relative to
the top of the source tree. This corresponds to the
--debs-dir command line option. This directive could be
used, for example, if you always use pbuilder or
svn-buildpackage to build your packages. Note that it also
affects debc(1) and debi(1).
See the above section "Directory name checking" for an explanation of
these variables. Note that these are package-wide configuration
variables, and will therefore affect all devscripts scripts
which check their value, as described in their respective manpages and
in devscripts.conf(5).
