pkgdiff - Package Changes Analyzer
Description: A tool for visualizing changes in Linux software packages
Keywords: pkgdiff, rpm, deb, diff, changes

# pkgdiff

A tool for visualizing changes in Linux software packages

Package Changes Analyzer (pkgdiff) is a tool for visualizing changes in Linux software packages (RPM, DEB, TAR.GZ, etc). The tool is intended for Linux maintainers who are interested in ensuring compatibility of old and new versions of packages.

The tool is developed by Andrey Ponomarenko: https://abi-laboratory.pro/

Table of Contents Downloads License Supported Platforms Dependencies Installation Usage Examples Adv. Usage Adv. Examples Bugs Maintainers Changes

## Downloads

All releases can be downloaded from this page.

Latest release: pkgdiff-1.7.2.tar.gz

Read-only access to the latest development version:

`git clone git://github.com/lvc/pkgdiff`

## License

This program is free software. You may use, redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU GPL

## Supported Platforms

GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X

## Dependencies

Requires:

- Perl 5 (5.8 or newer)
- GNU Diff
- GNU Wdiff
- GNU Awk
- GNU Binutils (readelf)
- RPM (rpm2cpio, rpm) for analysis of RPM packages
- DPKG (dpkg-deb, dpkg) for analysis of DEB packages

Suggests:

- ABI Compliance Checker (1.99.1 or newer)
- ABI Dumper (0.97 or newer)

## Installation

The tool is ready-to-use after extracting the archive.

You can also use a Makefile to install the tool into the system:

`sudo make install prefix=PREFIX [/usr, /usr/local]`

This command will install a `pkgdiff` program to the `PREFIX/bin` system directory and private modules into the `PREFIX/share`.

## Usage

`pkgdiff PKG1 PKG2`

The HTML report will be generated to:

`pkgdiff_reports/<pkg>/<v1>_to_<v2>/changes_report.html`

## Examples

Compare 0.4.1 and 0.8.1 versions of libqb SRPM-packages:

`pkgdiff libqb-0.4.1-2.fc15.src.rpm libqb-0.8.1-2.fc16.src.rpm`

The HTML report will be generated to:

`pkgdiff_reports/libqb/0.4.1_to_0.8.1/changes_report.html`

Compare 0.10.23 and 0.10.32 versions of gstreamer TXZ-packages:

`pkgdiff gstreamer-0.10.23-i486-1.txz gstreamer-0.10.32-i486-1.txz`

The HTML report will be generated to:

`pkgdiff_reports/gstreamer/0.10.23-i486-1_to_0.10.32-i486-1/changes_report.html`

Compare 0.3.4 and 0.4.0 versions of libssh TAR.GZ-packages:

`pkgdiff libssh-0.3.4.tar.gz libssh-0.4.0.tar.gz`

The HTML report will be generated to:

`pkgdiff_reports/libssh/0.3.4_to_0.4.0/changes_report.html`

Compare 1.10.2 and 1.12.2 versions of cairo DEB-packages:

`pkgdiff libcairo2-dev_1.10.2-6.1_i386.deb libcairo2-dev_1.12.2-1_i386.deb`

The HTML report will be generated to:

`pkgdiff_reports/libcairo2-dev/1.10.2-6.1_to_1.12.2-1/changes_report.html`

Compare 2.24.1 and 2.28.8 versions of glib RPM-packages:

`pkgdiff libglib2.0-devel-2.24.1.i586.rpm libglib2.0-devel-2.28.8.i586.rpm`

The HTML report will be generated to:

`pkgdiff_reports/libglib2.0-devel/2.24.1_to_2.28.8/changes_report.html`

## Adv. Usage

For advanced usage, see output of --help option:

`pkgdiff --help`

If you need to analyze a group of packages then you can create an XML-descriptor of this group (OLD.xml file):

<version>
2.24.1
</version>
<group>
libglib
</group>
<packages>
libglib2.0-devel-2.24.1-1mdv2010.1.i586.rpm
libglib2.0_0-2.24.1-1mdv2010.1.i586.rpm
</packages>

And then pass XML-descriptors of old and new versions of a group to the tool:

`pkgdiff OLD.xml NEW.xml`

The HTML report will be generated to:

`pkgdiff_reports/<group>/<v1>_to_<v2>/changes_report.html`

## Adv. Examples

Compare 2.3.12 and 2.4.5 versions of libfreetype6 group of RPM-packages:

`pkgdiff 2.3.12.xml 2.4.5.xml`

File 2.3.12.xml:

<version>
2.3.12
</version>
<group>
libfreetype6
</group>
<packages>
libfreetype6-2.3.12-1mdv2010.1.i586.rpm
libfreetype6-devel-2.3.12-1mdv2010.1.i586.rpm
</packages>

File 2.4.5.xml:

<version>
2.4.5
</version>
<group>
libfreetype6
</group>
<packages>
libfreetype6-2.4.5-2-mdv2011.0.i586.rpm
libfreetype6-devel-2.4.5-2-mdv2011.0.i586.rpm
</packages>

The HTML report will be generated to:

`pkgdiff_reports/libfreetype6/2.3.12_to_2.4.5/changes_report.html`

## Bugs

Please post your bug reports, feature requests and questions to the issue tracker.

## Maintainers

The tool is developed by Andrey Ponomarenko.

## Changes

Version 1.8 (January 28, 2017)
Bug Fixes

- Fixed -d option to compare large directories
- Added more file classes
- 5% performance improvement
- Omit *.N suffix when determining the file format
- Do not print warning about missed wdiff into the report
- Increased default width of the report to 80 chars

Version 1.7.2 (March 18, 2016)
New Features

- Ability to download plain-text added/removed patches from the report

Bug Fixes

- Do not show time stamp in the report
- Fixed removal of tmp directory in the rfcdiff-1.41-CUSTOM.sh

Version 1.7.1 (December 11, 2015)
New Features

- Added -skip-pattern option: skip checking of paths within archives matching a regex

Bug Fixes

- Fixed incompatibility with the latest versions of the ABICC tool
- Fixed comparison of the RPM/Deb packages info

Version 1.7.0 (October 18, 2015)
New Features

- Added -d option: compare directories instead of packages
- Added -list-added-removed option: show content of added/removed text files
- Added -vnum1 and -vnum2 options: set version numbers of input packages
- Added -title option: set name of the package in the title of the report
- Added -skip-subarchives option: skip checking of archives inside packages

Version 1.6.4 (September 08, 2015)
Bug Fixes

- Fixed style of the report
- Fixed install permissions
- Fixed errors when comparing man pages
- Added check for wdiff
- Simplified Makefile

Version 1.6.3 (November 05, 2014)
New Features

- Added -hide-unchanged option: don't show unchanged files in the report
- Show change rate in the extra info files.xml (moved, changed, renamed)
- Check if we can remove a common prefix from files of both packages
- Encoding of diff reports has been changed to utf-8

Bug Fixes

- Fixed a problem with spaces in package name
- Added -o option to unzip command
- Fixed -tmp-dir option

Version 1.6 (June 07, 2013)
New Features

- ABI compatibility check for shared objects and kernel modules containing DWARF debugging information (in -details mode)
- ABI status section in the report for debuginfo-packages
- Suggests ABI Compliance Checker 1.99.1
- Suggests ABI Dumper 0.97

Version 1.5 (April 04, 2013)
New Features

- Added -extra-info option to dump extra analysis information
- Improved identification of moved files
- Classifying files by magic bytes
- Compare public symbols in shared objects before detailed comparison
- Added statistics comment line in the report
- Support for more file types

Bug Fixes

- Corrected Makefile
- Corrected parser of package version

Version 1.4.1 (December 14, 2012)
Bug Fixes

- Corrected parser of package version
- Opening file diffs in a separate window

Version 1.4 (October 25, 2012)
New Features

- Sorting by status, delta and file name in the report
- New -open option to open report in the default browser
- Printing of estimated change rate to the console
- Simplified usage: pkgdiff PKG1 PKG2
- Support for Mac OS X
- Support for more file formats