pkglog 1.11

Reports log of package updates

PKGLOG - Linux utility to output list of changed packages

This is a Linux command line utility to output a list of packages installed, removed, upgraded, or downgraded. It should be able to parse the package log formats used by the common Linux distributions. Example output is shown below (although it is displayed with colored lines in most terminals, just not here in the text README).

$ pkglog
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021-01-15 10:52:18 alsa-card-profiles   14.1-1 -> 14.1-2
2021-01-15 10:52:18 libpulse             14.1-1 -> 14.1-2
2021-01-15 10:52:18 pulseaudio           14.1-1 -> 14.1-2
2021-01-15 10:52:18 mutter               3.38.2+7+gfbb9a34f2-1 -> 3.38.3-1
2021-01-15 10:52:18 pulseaudio-bluetooth 14.1-1 -> 14.1-2
2021-01-15 10:52:18 gnome-shell          1:3.38.2+22+g3a343a8aa-1 -> 1:3.38.3-1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021-01-15 16:16:26 gridsome-cli 0.3.3-1 removed
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021-01-16 07:11:33 httpie                2.3.0-3 -> 2.3.0-4
2021-01-16 07:11:33 nodejs                15.5.1-1 -> 15.6.0-1
2021-01-16 07:11:33 glib2                 2.66.4-1 -> 2.66.4-2
2021-01-16 07:11:33 glib2-docs            2.66.4-1 -> 2.66.4-2
2021-01-16 07:11:33 gtk-update-icon-cache 1:4.0.1-1 -> 1:4.0.1-2
2021-01-16 07:11:33 qt5-base              5.15.2-2 -> 5.15.2-3
2021-01-16 07:11:33 kdiagram              2.7.0-1 -> 2.8.0-1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021-01-17 07:13:15 nano         5.4-1 -> 5.5-1
2021-01-17 07:13:15 mesa         20.3.2-2 -> 20.3.3-1
2021-01-17 07:13:15 rav1e        0.3.5-1 -> 0.4.0-1
2021-01-17 07:13:15 tk           8.6.11-1 -> 8.6.11.1-1
2021-01-17 07:13:15 vulkan-intel 20.3.2-2 -> 20.3.3-1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021-01-18 06:51:45 perl-datetime-timezone      2.35-2 -> 2.44-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 python-h11                  0.11.0-1 -> 0.12.0-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 python-pkginfo              1.6.1-3 -> 1.7.0-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 alsa-card-profiles          14.1-2 -> 14.2-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 imagemagick                 7.0.10.57-1 -> 7.0.10.58-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 libbytesize                 2.4-3 -> 2.4-4
2021-01-18 06:51:46 libblockdev                 2.24-3 -> 2.25-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 libibus                     1.5.23+3+gaa558de8-2 -> 1.5.23+3+gaa558de8-3
2021-01-18 06:51:46 libmm-glib                  1.14.8-1 -> 1.14.10-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 libpulse                    14.1-2 -> 14.2-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 modemmanager                1.14.8-1 -> 1.14.10-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 pulseaudio                  14.1-2 -> 14.2-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 pulseaudio-bluetooth        14.1-2 -> 14.2-1
2021-01-18 06:51:46 python-urllib3              1.26.1-1 -> 1.26.2-1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021-01-18 07:21:10 ### LAST SYSTEM BOOT ###
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2021-01-18 07:57:48 tree 1.8.0-2 installed

1. By default, only package updates over the last 30 days are shown. You can choose to specify a specific date, or number of days back, or for all time.

2. Updates are grouped together by time (all updates with less than a 2 minute gap between any of them) so you can distinguish the group of packages updated each time you did a system update.

3. The LAST SYSTEM BOOT line shows you which packages have been updated since the last boot, e.g. if the linux kernel package was since updated you may decide to reboot asap. In the above example, only the tree package has been installed since the last boot.

4. You can specify a package name and only updates to that package are shown. See the USAGE section below.

5. Most terminals show this output in color. Five different colors are used to identify the package actions as shown below. You can choose to disable colored output.

6. You can use the -n/--installed-net option to see a list of all packages currently installed and their date of installation. E.g. use this option after you have installed and removed a heap of trial packages and you want to easily see if you have actually removed all of them.

See the latest documentation and code at https://github.com/bulletmark/pkglog.

COLORED OUTPUT LINES

Package Action	Line Text Color
Installed	green
Removed	red
Upgraded	yellow
Downgraded	magenta
Reinstalled	cyan

You can use a command line option to disable colored output, or set it as a default option.

LOG FILE FORMATS

Parsers for the following log formats currently exist. The appropriate parser for you system is normally automatically determined. Alternatively, you can choose the log directory[s], file[s], and/or parser explicitly using the -p/--parser option. A very simple parser plugin architecture is used, so creating a new parser is easy. Simply drop the parser file in the parsers/ directory and the program will automatically use it. See the current parsers for example code.

Log Parser	Default Path	Systems
apt	/var/log/apt/history*	Debian, Ubuntu, etc
dnf	/var/log/dnf.rpm.log	RedHat, Fedora, etc
pacman	/var/log/pacman.log	Arch, Manjaro, etc

USAGE

Type pkglog -h to view the usage summary:

usage: pkglog [-h] [-u] [-i] [-I] [-n] [-d DAYS] [-a] [-j] [-v] [-c]
                   [-p {pacman,apt,dnf}] [-t TIMEGAP] [-P PATH] [-g | -r]
                   [package]

Reports log of package updates.

positional arguments:
  package               specific package name to report

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -u, --updated-only    show updated only
  -i, --installed       show installed/removed only
  -I, --installed-only  show installed only
  -n, --installed-net   show net installed only
  -d DAYS, --days DAYS  show all packages only from given number of days ago,
                        or from given YYYY-MM-DD[?HH:MM[:SS]],
                        default=30(days), 0=today, -1=all
  -a, --alldays         show all packages for all days (same as "--days=-1")
  -j, --nojustify       don't right justify version numbers
  -v, --verbose         be verbose, describe upgrades/downgrades
  -c, --no-color        do not color output lines
  -p {pacman,apt,dnf}, --parser {pacman,apt,dnf}
                        log parser type, default=pacman
  -t TIMEGAP, --timegap TIMEGAP
                        max minutes gap between grouped updates, default=2
  -P PATH, --path PATH  alternate log path[s] (separate multiple using ":",
                        must be time sequenced)
  -g, --glob            given package name is glob pattern to match
  -r, --regex           given package name is regular expression to match

Note you can set default starting options in ~/.config/pkglog-flags.conf.

DEFAULT OPTIONS

You can add default options to a personal configuration file ~/.config/pkglog-flags.conf. If that file exists then each line of options in the file will be concatenated and automatically prepended to your pkglog command line options.

This allow you to set default preferred starting options to pkglog. Type pkglog -h to see the options supported. E.g. echo "--days 7" >~/.config/pkglog-flags.conf to make pkglog only display the last 7 days of updates by default. This is also useful to set your parser explicitly using -p/--parser (e.g. if the default parser is not automatically determined correctly on your system).

INSTALLATION

Arch Linux users can install pkglog from the AUR. Python 3.7 or later is required. The python-rich package is required if you want colored output (which is the default unless you specify the -c/--no-color option).

Note pkglog is on PyPI so just ensure that python3-pip and python3-wheel are installed then type the following to install (or upgrade):

$ sudo pip3 install -U pkglog

Alternatively, do the following to install from the source repository.

$ git clone http://github.com/bulletmark/pkglog
$ cd pkglog
$ sudo pip3 install -U .

UPGRADE

$ cd pkglog  # Source dir, as above
$ git pull
$ sudo pip3 install -U .

REMOVAL

$ sudo pip3 uninstall pkglog

LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2020 Mark Blakeney. This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ for more details.