NAME

scan-copyrights - Scan source file and print lines for debian/copyright files

SYNOPSIS

  # in source package directory
  scan-copyrights > debian/copyright.new
  meld debian/copyright{,.new}

DESCRIPTION

This commands use "licensecheck" command to scan license and copyright information from source files. The output of licensecheck is parsed to generate the Files information of "debian/copyright" files according to Debian specifications <https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/>

Tweaking results

Results can be tweaked either by:

Changing the list of files to scan or ignore. (By default, licensecheck will decide which file to scan or not.) See "Selecting or ignoring files to scan" in Dpkg::Copyright::Scanner
Specifying information for individual files or directories, such as copyright values, or to skip this file. See "Filling the blanks" in Dpkg::Copyright::Scanner.
Tweaking the copyright entries created by grouping and coaslescing information. See "Tweak copyright entries" in Dpkg::Copyright.

BUGS

Reliability

Extracting license and copyright data from unstructured comments is not reliable. User must check manually the files when no copyright info is found or when the license is unknown.

The required changes can be stored in "debian/fill.copyright.blanks.yml" so that future runs of scan-copyrights will be more accurate. Please see "Filling the blanks" in Dpkg::Copyright::Scanner for instructions to write this file.

Extracting information from Cargo.toml

Copyright and information is extracted from "Cargo.toml" files, but Cargo workspace information is ignored. The command "cargo metadata" cannot be used as it produces information for packages, whereas "debian/copyright" expects information for files.

Corrupted package.json or toml files

Some packages contain test file with invalid "package.json" or "Cargo.toml" files. "scan-copyright" cannot deal with them and you must tell "scan-copyright" to skip these files. See "Selecting or ignoring files to scan" in Dpkg::Copyright::Scanner for details.

Examples

In pan source directory:

 $ scan-copyright
 no info for ./uulib/fptools.h, check manually this file
 no info for ./uulib/fptools.c, check manually this file
 no info for ./uulib/uustring.h, check manually this file
 no info for ./uulib/crc32.h, check manually this file
 no info for ./pan/data/defgroup.h, check manually this file
 no info for ./pan/general/time-elapsed.h, check manually this file
 [ snip ]
 Files: *
 Copyright: 1994-2001, by Frank Pilhofer.
 License: GPL-2+
 Files: pan/*
 Copyright: 2002-2006, Charles Kerr <charles@rebelbase.com>
 License: GPL-2
 Files: pan/data/cert-store.cc
 Copyright: 2011, Heinrich Muller <henmull@src.gnome.org>
   2002-2006, Charles Kerr <charles@rebelbase.com>
 License: GPL-2
 Files: pan/data/cert-store.h
 Copyright: 2002-2006, Charles Kerr <charles@rebelbase.com>
   2011, Heinrich Muller <henmull@src.gnome.org>
 License: GPL-2
 [ snip ]

SUPPORT

For support, please contact the author.

AUTHOR

Dominique Dumont <dod@debian.org>

2025-04-10

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