man Debbugs::Log (3): an interface to debbugs .log files

DESCRIPTION

The Debbugs::Log module provides a convenient way for scripts to read and write the .log files used by debbugs to store the complete textual records of all bug transactions.

The .log File Format

.log files consist of a sequence of records, of one of the following four types. ^A, ^B, etc. represent those control characters.

incoming-recv

  ^G
  [mail]
  ^C

"[mail]" must start with /^Received: \(at \S+\) by \S+;/, and is copied to the output.

autocheck

Auto-forwarded messages are recorded like this:

  ^A
  [mail]
  ^C

"[mail]" must contain /^X-Debian-Bugs(-\w+)?: This is an autoforward from \S+/. The first line matching that is removed; all lines in the message body that begin with 'X' will be copied to the output, minus the 'X'.

Nothing in debbugs actually generates this record type any more, but it may still be in old .logs at some sites.

recips

  ^B
  [recip]^D[recip]^D[...] OR -t
  ^E
  [mail]
  ^C

Each [recip] is output after ``Message sent''; "-t" represents the same sendmail option, indicating that the recipients are taken from the headers of the message itself.

html

  ^F
  [html]
  ^C

[html] is copied unescaped to the output. The record immediately following this one is considered ``boring'' and only shown in certain output modes.

(This is a design flaw in the log format, since it makes it difficult to change the HTML presentation later, or to present the data in an entirely different format.)

No other types of records are permitted, and the file must end with a ^C line.

Perl Record Representation

Each record is a hash. The "type" field is "incoming-recv", "autocheck", "recips", or "html" as above; "text" contains text from "[mail]" or "[html]" as above; "recips" is a reference to an array of recipients (strings), or undef for "-t".

FUNCTIONS

new

Creates a new log reader based on a .log filehandle.

      my $log = Debbugs::Log->new($logfh);
      my $log = Debbugs::Log->new(bug_num => $nnn);
      my $log = Debbugs::Log->new(logfh => $logfh);

Parameters

bug_num --- bug number
logfh --- log filehandle
log_name --- name of log

: One of the above options must be passed.

read_record

Reads and returns a single record from a log reader object. At end of file, returns undef. Throws exceptions using die(), so you may want to wrap this in an eval().

read_log_records

Takes a .log filehandle as input, and returns an array of all records in that file. Throws exceptions using die(), so you may want to wrap this in an eval().

Uses exactly the same options as Debbugs::Log::new

write_log_records

Takes a filehandle and a list of records as input, and prints the .log format representation of those records to that filehandle.

escape_log

     print {$log} escape_log(@log)

Applies the log escape regex to the passed logfile.

CAVEATS