Package: devscripts
Version: 2.13.2
Severity: wishlist
File: /usr/bin/dch
Tags: patch

        Hi there!

It would be nice if dch configs could be overriden from the environment
as per attached patch.  This would likely be useful in more than my
specfic use case, but here's why I'd like this feature: I work on
Debian, Linaro and Ubuntu packages with Debian, Ubuntu, Linaro and other
hats and from various environments.  I have my shell config to set my
git/bzr/dch name and email address as follow:
    alias debian='EMAIL="lool-nospam-debian.org" BZR_EMAIL="Loïc Minier <$EMAIL>"'
    alias linaro='EMAIL="loic.minier-nospam-linaro.org" BZR_EMAIL="Loïc Minier <$EMAIL>"'
    alias ubuntu='EMAIL="loic.minier-nospam-ubuntu.com" BZR_EMAIL="Loïc Minier <$EMAIL>"'
    export NAME="Loïc Minier"
    export EMAIL="lool-nospam-dooz.org"

(inserted nospam in place of @)

This alllows me to work with my Debian hat by prefixing commands with
debian:
    debian dch -a
    debian debcommit

or to switch my shell config to my Linaro hat with:
    linaro
    dch -a
    debcommit
etc.

I'd like to do the same with the DEBCHANGE_VENDOR which is used for
version number heuristics, but currently devscripts only read from
command-line or config files; hence the attached patch to read from the
environment.

    Cheers,

Adding the appropriate variant of

  DEBFULLNAME="Loïc Minier <lool-nospam-dooz.org>

to your aliases should resolve most of your request, since DEBFULLNAME
is one of the few environment variables we honor.

There was a specific choice at some point in devscripts' history not to
honor configuration from the environment except for a select few items
(like DEBFULLNAME).

It's been that way, as far as I can tell, the entirety of devscripts'
history, so I'm hesitant to change that, especially just for one script.

Hopefully at least the DEBFULLNAME information helps.

Cheers,