changelogapp

changelog

Easily create, manage and maintain changelogs

Installation

This project can be used as both a command line application and as a module. A simple API is currently available that gives access to changelog functions as an npm module.

To install as a command line application, run the following:

$ npm install changelogapp -g

As an aside, if you have vim set as your $EDITOR, then make sure that in your ~/.vimrc file you add the following line (to enable spellcheck and non-destructive line-wrapping):

" Enable spellcheck and wrap for changelog edit messages
autocmd VimEnter .UPDATE_EDITMSG setlocal spell linebreak wrap

Command line usage

Navigate to the directory that you wish to create and modify changelogs in.

$ changelog <command> [<args>]

Below are the commands that can be run from the command line:

Simple commands

Command	Description
help	List the documentation
init	Initialize a blank CHANGELOG.md file in the current directory
parse	Parse the CHANGELOG.md file to JSON format
status	Print out changelog information, including the current version and a summary of the changes made

Changelog commands

add, change, deprecate, remove, fix, and secure as arguments all serve the same purpose of updating the Unreleased section of the changelog with content (corresponding to the keepachangelog categories).

It will open $EDITOR, at which point you can enter the changes made prevalent to that category, separating each new item with a new line.

Version commands

Command	Description
bump [version \| patch \| minor \| major]	This command will bump the Unreleased header to the next desired version. If no argument is specified a patch update will automatically be applied. You can specify your own version (provided it adheres to Semantic Versioning) or you can specify a patch, minor or major jump
copy	Copy the contents of the latest release item to the clipboard in markdown format

API usage

First things first, install the module as normal by running the following command in the directory you want to install to:

$ npm install changelogapp

Currently you can parse changelogs to JSON format and stringify the result back into a CHANGELOG.md file.

Parsing a changelog

const changelog = require("changelogapp");
const fs = require("fs");
 
// Get the CHANGELOG.md file
fs.readFile("CHANGELOG.md", "utf8", function(err, docs){
 
    // Parse the contents
    changelog.parse(docs, function(err, data){
        if (err){
            console.log("There was an error parsing the changelog");
        } else {
            console.log(JSON.stringify(data, null, 4));
        }
    });
 
});

For the above example, the output will be:

[
    {
        "version": "Unreleased",
        "released": false,
        "date": null,
        "link": false,
        "content": {
            "Fixed": [
                "Remove the muffin man"
            ]
        }
    },
    {
        "version": "0.0.1",
        "released": true,
        "date": "2016-02-19T00:00:00.000Z",
        "link": false,
        "content": {
            "Added": [
                "The ability to do some cool stuff",
                "Have you heard of the muffin man?"
            ]
        }
    }
]

Stringify the JSON data back to markdown

const changelog = require("changelogapp");
const fs = require("fs");
const parsedChangelog = require("./parsed-changelog.json");
 
// Stringify the JSON
changelog.stringify(parsedChangelog, function(err, data){
    if (err){
        console.log("Could not stringify the changelog data");
    } else {
 
        // Write the updated changelog file
        fs.writeFile("CHANGELOG.md", data, function(err){
            if (err)
                throw err;
        });
 
    }
});

Given the JSON example from the previous section, the stringify function will generate the following markdown file:

# Changelog
 
All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 
The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/), and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 
## Unreleased
 
### Fixed
 
- Remove the muffin man
 
## 0.0.1 - 2016-02-19
 
### Added
 
- The ability to do some cool stuff
- Have you heard of the muffin man?
 

Warnings

Currently, changelog is very much in beta and a few things may not work perfectly. The most notable case being the fact that the parsing algorithm doesn't handle non-keepachangelog-style changelogs very well (if at all).

While support for changelogs that don't conform to this standard is not planned, if you have a CHANGELOG.md file that you believe should be supported, then create a new issue with the CHANGELOG.md file attached and a description of any errors you get.