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The debian/changelog gives the Debian™ package a version number
and keeps track of changes made to the package in a particular
version. While the changelog can still be maintained by hand we
can make use of gbp dch to have our Git commit messages end up
in debian/changelog. This avoids the double maintenance of the Git
commit history and the Debian™ changelog. If you don't want a
one to one mapping of changelog entries to Git commits you're
free to edit the changelog by hand at any point.
Not committing changelog entries with the actual modifications also has the advantage that the changelog won't cause any trouble when cherry-picking patches from different branches. It can be created when releasing the package or after performing several commits. Invocations of dch and gbp dch can be mixed.
The simplest way is doing all the changes to the
debian-branch without touching
debian/changelog at all. Then, when done, do:
gbp dch --release
This will look up the latest released version in the changelog, increment the version in the Debian™ changelog, generate changelog messages from the corresponding Git commit id up to the branch head, and finally spawns an editor for final changelog editing.
You can run gbp dch without any options to make it add all commit messages since the last Debian™ tag to a new UNRELEASED changelog section:
gbp dch
You can then commit the debian/changelog
to have your current changes recorded. Later invocations of
gbp dch will check when
debian/changelog was last modified and
not add these commits again. Upon your last call of gbp dch
before releasing the package add --release
again to have the UNRELEASED distribution
in the changelog turned into unstable.