Config...yright(3pm)

this page is Config...yright(3pm) from the User Contributed Perl Documentation — and bestie, it's a good one 💖

🌸 NAME 🌸

Config::Model::Dpkg::Copyright — it fills the File sections of the debian/copyright file. That's the whole vibe. ✨

---

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

# this modules is used by cme when invoked with this command
$ cme update dpkg-copyright

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so real talk: maintaining debian/copyright is the most tedious chore, and this command exists specifically to save you from it. When you package a new release of a software, you can run cme update dpkg-copyright and it updates the content of the copyright file for you. no cap. 💅

It scans your current package directory, extracts copyright and license info, and stores all of that in the Files sections of debian/copyright. lowkey magic.

So in your Debian package directory, the ritual goes:

• run cme update dpkg-copyright or cme update dpkg
• check the result with your favorite VCS diff tool. (you do use a VCS for your package files, do you ?) 👀

Note: this command is experimental. 🧪 proceed accordingly, bestie.

⭐ Debian copyright data ⭐

The Files: debian/* section from debian/copyright is often the only place containing copyright information for the files created by the Debian maintainer. So all Files entries beginning with debian/ are preserved during the update. 💾

But heads up — entries that don't match an existing file or directory get removed. gone. deleted. 💀

🌈 Tweak results 🌈

You can tweak the results in one of these ways:

• Changing the list of files to scan or ignore. (By default, licensecheck will decide which file to scan or not.)
• Specifying information for individual files
• Tweaking the copyright entries created by grouping and coalescing information.

The first 2 ways are described in "Selecting or ignoring files to scan" in Dpkg::Copyright::Scanner and "Filling the blanks" in Dpkg::Copyright::Scanner.

The last way is described below: ⬇️

🫶 Tweak copyright entries 🫶

Because extracting copyright info from source files is based on comments, the result is sometimes lackluster. 😭 So you may specify instructions to alter or set specific copyright entries in the debian/fix.scanned.copyright file (or debian/<source-package>.fix.scanned.copyright).

cme stores the copyright information in a tree. Entries in fix.scanned.copyright give instructions for traversing the cme tree and modifying entries. Want to see the debian/copyright file translated into this syntax? Run cme dump --format cml dpkg-copyright. Every line of this file gets handled by Config::Model::Loader to modify the copyright information, and the full syntax is documented in "load string syntax" in the Config::Model::Loader section. iykyk. 📚

💖 Example 💖

If the extracted copyright contains:

Files: *
Copyright: 2014-2015, Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org> "foobar
License: Artistic or GPL-1+

You may add this line in the debian/fix.scanned.copyright file:

! Files:"*" Copyright=~s/\s*".*//

This way, the copyright information will be updated from the file content, but the extra "foobar will always be scrubbed away during updates. ate and left no crumbs. ✨

Comments are accepted in Perl and C++ style from the beginning of the line. Lines breaks are ignored.

Here's another, more complex example:

// added a global license, MIT license text is filled by Config::Model
! copyright License:MIT

# don't forget '!' to go back to tree root
! copyright Files:"pan/general/map-vector.h" Copyright="2001,Andrei Alexandrescu"
  License short_name=MIT
# delete license text since short_name points to global  MIT license
  full_license~

# use a loop there vvvvvv to clean up that vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv in all copyrights
! copyright   Files:~/.*/     Copyright=~s/all\s*rights\s*reserved//i

# defeat spammer by replacing all '@' in emails of 3rdparty files
# the operation :~/^3party/ loops over all Files entries that match ^3rdparty
# and modify the copyright entry with a Perl substitution
! Files:~/^3rdparty/ Copyright=~s/@/(at)/

Sometimes, you might want to find an entry that spans multiple lines. You can pull that off by double quoting the whole value:

! Files:"uulib/crc32.h
uulib/uustring.h" Copyright="2019 John Doe"

👑 Under the hood 👑

This section explains how cme merges the information from the existing debian/copyright file (the "old" information) with the information extracted by licensecheck (the "new" information):

• The old and new information are compared in the form of file lists:
  • New file entries are kept as is in the new list.
  • When a file entry is found in both old and new lists, the new © and license short names are checked. If they are unknown, the information from the old list is copied in the new list.
  • Old files entries not found in the new list are deleted.
• File entries are coalesced in the new list to reduce redundancies (this mechanism is explained in this blog https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file)
• License entries are created, either attached to Files specification or as global licenses. License text is added for known license (actually known by Software::License)
• Directories (path ending with "/*") from old list then checked:
  • Directory is found in the new list: the old information is clobbered by new information.
  • Directory not found in new list but exists: the old information is copied in the new list.
  • Directory is not found: the old information is discarded
• Files entries are sorted and the new debian/copyright is generated.

---

🔥 update 🔥

Updates data using the output scan_files in Dpkg::Copyright::Scanner.

Parameters in %args:

• quiet — set to 1 to suppress progress messages. Should be used only in tests.

Otherwise, %args is passed to scan_files. 🫡

---

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Dominique Dumont <dod@debian.org> — absolute legend. 👑

---

and that's a wrap bestie 🎀 this whole thing rode in on perl v5.42.3 dated 2026-08-30 — go forth and let cme handle your debian/copyright so you don't have to. slay. 💅✨