vcswatch reports that
this package seems to have a new changelog entry (version
1.23.12, distribution
UNRELEASED) and new commits
in its VCS. You should consider whether it's time to make
an upload.
Here are the relevant commit messages:
commit 7492eb3d9b1e4f325bd4845614eaf126240ba8c7
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sun Oct 11 07:53:34 2026 +0200
build: Bump -Wstrict-overflow from level 2 to 3
The only code emitting a warning under level 3 was just fixed, so we can
switch to this more strict level now.
commit 9b8b5d4a0b25a5fa702959d75cae7d1da1314d0e
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sun Oct 11 07:49:17 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Make sure we do not overflow when growing command argv
Make sure argv_size is equal or larger than argc, otherwise the
subtraction might underflow.
Warned-by: gcc -Wstrict-overflow=3
commit 0d9e674c71aba75aa321c5083b54e35e343d7c3c
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Fri Oct 2 00:05:37 2026 +0200
scripts: Remove redundant imports
These imports are redundant with us having declared the same as our
parent.
commit c66b661d676d5ea284d2dfa027363a2cc2dc14c0
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Fri Oct 2 00:06:51 2026 +0200
scripts: Explicitly import Dpkg::Control::Types module
We are using the control types from this module, explicitly import it so
that we do not rely on other modules pulling it in.
commit 76563d4991a44d5182b3c108d7ad751896264e02
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 26 11:49:54 2026 +0200
scripts: Remove /o modifier from regular expressions
This modifier is generally discouraged as unnecessary. And in our case
it also prevents one of the variables to be modified during the module
lifetime, which can have very surprising and unexpected results.
commit 69788e7bafbbfe953bfbb568db4ed42295255c25
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Thu Sep 17 23:43:34 2026 +0200
dpkg: Split available db update and clear actions into different functions
These perform actions that are more distinct than equal, by splitting
the logic, we reduce the amount of conditionals, and simplify the code,
at the cost of little duplication.
Changelog: internal
commit 638335709edc6ef1ef0f93112b5d66b481c6674c
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Oct 12 19:51:21 2026 +0200
dpkg: Parse the --*-avail arguments before initializing the database
We should first check the arguments, before we do any database
initialization, so that there are less chances for error while unwinding
on errors.
commit 33ef594d6bbc1c02139484e36ba73ae1031b7d85
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Thu Sep 17 23:36:18 2026 +0200
dpkg: Refactor db_available_check_access() function
Changelog: internal
commit a19ddf008c9f3fe6bfde8c4997fb2343a4be2ad6
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Thu Sep 17 21:53:43 2026 +0200
dpkg-source: Clarify warning about duplicate address in Uploader field
The message was not clear that the address is duplicated between the
Uploaders and Maintainer fields.
Changelog: output
commit f93cf6de533ce91c8e9cda7a62baa738aba0218b
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Tue Sep 15 02:48:39 2026 +0200
dpkg: Make execbackend() static and move it to its declaration location
There is no need for this function to be extern, when it is only used
in this file.
Changelog: internal
commit d0dd729dee865e6adb55f4e73bd716afde072268
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Tue Sep 15 02:39:00 2026 +0200
dpkg: Deprecate ancient alias for --selected-only
The --no-also-select alias has been long marked for removal, but never
acted on. Start the deprecation process so that we can remove the option
in the next major version cycle.
commit a81963d9b971dd89d2e80fd537d2ae101a3d807f
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Tue Sep 15 02:25:01 2026 +0200
dpkg: Rename yet-to-unpack functions
This code uses functions with no word separators, and contractions which
makes reading them and looking for them harder.
Changelog: internal
commit d500c7e8b394c7c31bffd5eea9ead6af3643281b
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 15:10:52 2026 +0200
dpkg: Add support for auditing the database contents
We should load all the databases so that we can trigger their parsing,
to be able to report errors.
Closes: #1016143
commit 7f68f0e0f26ff451e0352e3c4bd71abde80e8c38
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 15:10:21 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Refactor files list file loading from a package array visitor function
Add a generic visitor function to load the pkg files list file.
commit 7572b706417929e1f220bcabd801a7b5f5236f63
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Tue Oct 13 00:13:21 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Move pkg function typedefs to pkg.h
These are generic function types that are pkg specific, not pkg_array
specific.
commit c9cadadb6192daf589bdba93b409f1f33bd4895f
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Tue Oct 13 00:11:29 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Change pkg_array_visitor_func() to pkg_visitor_func()
Generalize the visitor function and avoid the now unnecessary pkg_array
argument.
commit 8b3db7da26886d6cc44d2eaa7903663b5407e53a
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Tue Oct 13 00:05:14 2026 +0200
dpkg-query: Move list_format_init() outside of the pkg_array visitor
We only need to initialize it once, and having the call within the
visitor forces us to have to pass the array pointer to the visitor,
which does not make much sense as an API.
Changelog: internal
commit 69d49dc700b30688adaaaf6a37cbafe1b715f988
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 23:33:17 2026 +0200
dpkg: Add minimal database structure audit support
This replaces the ad-hoc test that was introduced as part of the u-a
fix-up code, which got then removed once the upgrade had been
guaranteed.
commit 3e4201221251cea7f0e800c08a054a90a61e84ff
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 23:33:14 2026 +0200
dpkg: Split database audit code into its own module
We are going to grow the audit capabilities, and the command has a
clearly delineated surface that makes sense to split into its own
module.
Changelog: internal
commit 3e4ee26d4746598f3f36d508493a2727bf7fbdcf
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Tue Sep 15 02:10:57 2026 +0200
dpkg: Indent package names in --audit and --yet-to-unpack with two spaces
One space is too small of a width to make it easily distinguishable
from the problem description paragraph.
Changelog: output
commit 8e2b8134e6d139023ab28f13c7a51023c4c12bd1
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 23:31:28 2026 +0200
dpkg: Print only the package name in --audit and --yet-to-unpack
Printing the synopsis for packages in both of these options does not
seem very helpful, and distracts from the more important part which is
the actual package name.
As a side effect, this will avoid having to refactor the now removed
describebriefly() function once we split the audit code into its own
module.
Changelog: output
commit bfb3e3f0fc4842e6857e35e31dd7fadba673cc13
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 03:29:19 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Rename and namespace database file and directory macros
Prefix them with DPKG_DB_ to make it obvious these are related to the
dpkg database. Unify their naming, and split words with underscores for
clarity.
commit f10d3274ac840c62f396b8965c1ed70b454528cf
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 23:33:12 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Move database pathname macros to dpkg-db.h
Centralize all file and directory pathnames that can be found in the
dpkg database into dpkg-db.h, where they belong, so that we can reference
them from other places.
commit 47e6964450966be358bd389e5ae98bc756bdd8e5
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 03:41:11 2026 +0200
Split dselect methods libdir macro usage from database dir macro
While the directory component name matches for both the methods libdir
and the database methods state dir, they serve different purposes, and
should use two independent macros.
Changelog: internal
commit df34a189e82dc0abe49bf90b6293cc3469a43040
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 14 02:05:08 2026 +0200
man: Document backport markers handling in dpkg-mergechangelogs(1)
Explain in a generic way how these are handled depending on the vendor.
Closes: #1079138
commit b179e82b37164bf40102d2012d5fc5da2bbb3efb
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sun Sep 13 01:26:03 2026 +0200
man: Fix format of some "since version" sentences
commit 4f110ef03d947b2d24b2f93d8491e490b7416812
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 12 20:50:44 2026 +0200
dpkg-source: Add support for --robot for --version output
This makes it possible for other tools to get the exact version of the
Perl based tools, w/o needing to parse the human readable --version
output, which is susceptible to changes.
commit 393e248e47ccc72c56cfaa5734f1a5fa0335c429
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 12 20:50:21 2026 +0200
dpkg-source: Handle --help and --version as commands
These were currently being acted on immediately when found during CLI
parsing. Which means we could not apply any modifier options to them.
To be able to add --robot support, we need to handle them like any other
proper action, which is really what these are anyway.
commit 9168bcec73c90f943a0e3fd5fecbc877c72001dd
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 12 20:49:27 2026 +0200
Switch to libdpkg print_version()
Use the new function from libdpkg, instead of duplicating the same code
on each program.
Changelog: internal
commit 08f8d07afbb5852c3b0dabe319f01a690b3ad320
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Mon Sep 21 04:42:01 2026 +0200
dpkg-ar: Add missing paragraph separator in --help output
commit 573f71bf882f70e463d34b621346615969c46f73
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 12 20:44:32 2026 +0200
Add missing program synopsis to new field in --help output
Most of the packages did not print a synopsis in their --version output.
Add it explicitly to their --help output with the new infrastructure.
commit 2fe6440f357ac6a2b66355875c1bc0fc74a1ba62
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 12 20:44:32 2026 +0200
Move program synopsis from --version to a new field in --help output
The short program description for a program makes more sense in the
--help output than in the --version output. Move it into a new field
after the Usage: one.
commit a1ff7f8fd2641a631606b7d8b3d18014e8339599
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sun Sep 20 20:54:47 2026 +0200
Dpkg::Getopt: Add print_synopsis() function
This adds this new output so that we can print a short description for
each program on their --help output, to give a bit of context on what
the tool is intended to do.
commit d42816d398b5ba21e8e8c29257900dd1114ceeb2
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 12 20:40:20 2026 +0200
Dpkg::Getopt: Add a function to print the version in robot format
We have similar functionality in dpkg itself, and this makes it possible
to add the same for one of the Perl programs, so that users can obtain
the program version in a machine readable way.
commit 825e19e1a6a71343ab3f6ec40ab567347f6df956
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 12 20:39:56 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Add print_synopsis() function
This adds this new output so that we can move it out from some current
program --version output into a uniform location in the --help output,
where it is in context and makes more sense.
commit 3a7e0c846aaeb3351f76ecafe85ca362c4f85c2f
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Sat Sep 12 20:39:56 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Add print_version() function
This way we can centralize program version printing and have a unified
formatting for all programs. The output format matches the current
format from the Perl programs.
commit 8efc494f0e789fde0c1631d5490a88d421fe433e
Author: Mathieu Dubois-Briand <mathieu.dubois-briand@bootlin.com>
Date: Thu Sep 10 11:13:50 2026 +0200
libdpkg: Add missing included header
Building is failing with some compilers, as free() is not declared. Add
the missing <stdlib.h> include.
Fixes: commit 322edb2f8c5325493f1feb1d0eb5edf451952d8c
Signed-off-by: Mathieu Dubois-Briand <mathieu.dubois-briand@bootlin.com>
Signed-off-by: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
commit 2d4ded4470b4802df538489ddb0e5c4f2bfdf1c8
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Thu Sep 24 23:59:34 2026 +0200
test: Skip hop 0.26.1 from tests as it was a buggy release
This hop release makes the dpkg test suite and autopkgtests fail, which
implies that the CI and distribution migrations will fail. Skip the
backend if we have this specific version.
commit d0dbbb454332e57c4e713d2a4a61b547a0f9232c
Author: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Date: Wed Sep 9 16:36:24 2026 +0200
Bump version to 1.23.12
![[bug history graph]](https://qa.debian.org/data/bts/graphs/d/dpkg.png){kind=link}