history

history

History is a program for querying a Debian packages stored in a MySQL database filled with debsqlfill. It can be directly used on the command line, but it also has an advanced interactive mode.

Web interface

See EDOS console

Download and install

The latest source tarball, a precompiled binary version for Linux/i386, and fresh daily Debian data can be downloaded here.

Common options

Database and debug options.

• -host database host
• -port database port
• -user database user ("edos-debian")
• -database database ("edos-debian")
• -password database password ("hexuronic")
• -sql-debug-file file to write SQL commands to ("sql.debug")
• -flavor Debian flavor ("debian")
• -distribution Debian distribution ("unstable")
• -component Debian component ("main")
• -architecture Debian architecture ("binary-i386")
• -start Start date (none)
• -end End date (none)
• -debug-sql write SQL commands to file
• -debug turn debugging messages on

Non-interactive mode

The non-interactive mode is not very advanced but can be useful.

• -timeline (unit_name) Will display the timeline for the given unit.
• -what-provides (unit_name) Lists the packages that provide a given unit.
• -timeline : give the timeline for the given unit

Examples

% ./cli/history -distribution unstable -timeline kernel-package
kernel-package 9.008.4 8 2005-11-02 2005-12-02 25
kernel-package 10.011 15 2005-12-03 2005-12-03 1
kernel-package 10.012 16 2005-12-04 2005-12-05 2
kernel-package 10.015 17 2005-12-07 2005-12-07 1
kernel-package 10.016 18 2005-12-08 2005-12-10 3
kernel-package 10.017 19 2005-12-12 2005-12-14 3
kernel-package 10.018 20 2005-12-15 2005-12-17 2
kernel-package 10.019 21 2005-12-18 2005-12-20 3
kernel-package 10.020 22 2005-12-22 2005-12-22 1
kernel-package 10.023 23 2005-12-23 2005-12-23 1
kernel-package 10.024 24 2005-12-24 2005-12-25 2
kernel-package 10.026 25 2005-12-27 2006-01-04 5
kernel-package 10.030 26 2006-01-05 2006-01-09 5
kernel-package 10.031 27 2006-01-11 2006-01-12 2

% ./cli/history -what-provides ara
ara-byte 1.0.9
ara-byte 1.0.10
ara-byte 1.0.11

Interactive mode

The interactive mode is invoked with the "-interactive" option. There is a built-in line editor based on Ledit (as in ara?).

Values

• units : A unit is a component of an OSS project. For instance, libc6 is a unit.
• packages : A package is a couple (unit,version). It is internally represented as its ID in the packages table. A package can be written as package'version, for instance libc6'2.3.5-12 is a package.
• sets of units
• sets of packages

Variables

• Variable names start with a dollar ($) sign.
• To assign a value x to a variable v, just write $v <- x

Operators

Boolean operations on sets : if x and y are sets, then x | y is the union, x & y is the intersection and x y is the difference of x and y. The syntax for other unary and binary operations is f(x) or f(x,y) where f is the operator name and x and y are expressions. The set extension of most operators is defined.

Archives

An archive is a set of package. A built-in variable, archive, maps each archive ID and date to such a set. For instance, by writing #list_archives we get :

…
  03 debian unstable main binary-i386
  04 debian experimental contrib binary-i386
  05 debian stable non-free binary-i386
  06 debian testing main binary-i386
…
We then look at archive 3 (unstable, main, binary-i386) by writing #show_archive 3:
2005-11-02 16640
2005-11-03 16640
2005-11-04 16640
…

We get a list of dates and, for each date, the number of packages the archive contains at that date.
We may then get the contents of the archive on 2005-11-02 by writing
  $archives(3)(2005-11-02)

It may be useful to assign the result to a variable:
  $a <- $archives(3)(2005-11-02)

We can also write :
  $unstable <- $archives(3)

Other built-in variables



$print_dependencies(p) - Display the dependency information of package p in human-readable form
Directives



#help Show help
#env Show environment values
#list_archives List known archives
#show_archive id Show the days the given archive has entries for