changelog-parser

Parse ChangeLog files that are written in the Markdown format suggested by keep a changelog, e.g.:

# Release Notes

## [1.0.0] - 11/04/21

### New

- Connect to turbo-encabulator on serial port

### Fixed

- Solar versus sideral time in launch time calculation
- Inches versus millimeters in telescope mirror size

Install

npm install --save-dev @osteele/changelog-parser

yarn add -D @osteele/changelog-parser

Usage

import parseChangeLog from "@osteele/changelog-parser";

// either:
const filePath = "/path/to/changelog.md"
const changelog = parseChangeLog({ filePath });

// or:
const text = fs.readFileSync(filePath, 'utf-8');
const changelog = parseChangeLog({ text });

// => changelog:
{
  title: "Release Notes",
  versions: [
    {
      title: "[1.0.0] - 11/04/21",
      version: "1.0.0",
      date: "2021-11-04",
      changes: [
        {"New": "Connect to turbo-encabulator on serial port"},
        {"Fixed": "Solar versus sideral time in launch time calculation"},
        {"Fixed": "Inches versus millimeters in telescope mirror size"},
      ],
      categories: {
        "New": ["Connect to turbo-encabulator on serial port"],
        "Fixed": [
          "Solar versus sideral time in launch time calculation",
          "Inches versus millimeters in telescope mirror size"
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

See ./example/changelog2html.ts for an example.

See the source file or the TypeScript type declaration file for the full types of the options, and the properties of the return value.

Options

You must provide either filePath or text. The remaining parameters are optional.

text

Text of the change log.

filePath

Path to the change log. This is read synchronously and decoded as UTF-8.

categorySortOrder

If non-null, re-order change categories within each version.

See the source code for the default order.

Specify null to disable sorting.

defaultTitle

The default title. This is used if the source text doesn't have a title (H1 element, via # Title markdown notation).

Default: "Release Notes"

recognizeColonSections

If true, recognize e.g. Changed: as equivalent to ### Changed.

Default: true

omitUnreleasedVersions

Omit versions whose titles are equal to "Unreleased", ignoring case.

Default: true

outputFormat

This controls the format of the ChangeLog.changes[].body and ChangeLog.categories[key] strings.

Values:

• html: An HTML string, e.g. "An item with <em>emphasis</em> and a <a href="target">link</a>."
• text: Text content, e.g. "An item with emphasis and a link."

Default: html

Comparison with other packages

This package provides similar functionality to the parse-changelogs and changelog-parser packages, except that:

1. This packages recognizes multi-line text in change lists. (The other packages return only the first line.)
2. This package can returns HTML strings, instead of plaintext or markdown. (parse-changelogs returns only plaintext. changelog-parser can return either plaintext or markdown.)
3. Dates are in ISO format.
4. There are options to sort changes by category, to omit unreleased versions, and to recognize additional formats for change category sections.

	@osteele/changelog-parser	changelog-parser	parse-changelogs
Can return immediate value	✔️		✔️
Can return Promise		✔️
Can call async callback on completion		✔️
Can return HTML change body text	✔️
Can return Markdown change body text		✔️
Can return unformatted change body text	✔️	✔️	✔️
Date format	ISO	same as input	ISO
Reads multi-line list items	✔️	x	x

History

I wrote this package the Visual Studio Code P5 Server Extension, because parse-changelogs removed link formatting and didn't recognize multi-line changes and I didn't see an easy way to get from that code to what I wanted.

I wasn't aware of changelog-parser until I went to publish this as an npm package, so I haven't looked at how difficult it would be to modify it to meet my requirements.

License

MIT