licensecheck(1)

1LICENSECHECK(1)       User Contributed Perl Documentation      LICENSECHECK(1)
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NAME

6       licensecheck - simple license checker for source files
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VERSION

9       Version v3.2.12
10

SYNOPSIS

12           licensecheck [ --help | --version ]
13
14           licensecheck [ --list-licenses | --list-naming-schemes ]
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16           licensecheck [OPTION...] PATH [PATH...]
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DESCRIPTION

19       licensecheck attempts to determine the license that applies to each
20       file passed to it, by searching the start of the file for text
21       belonging to various licenses.
22
23       If any of the arguments passed are directories, licensecheck will add
24       the files contained within to the list of files to process.
25
26       When multiple PATHs are provided, only files matching --check and not
27       --ignore are checked.
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OPTIONS

30   Resolving patterns
31       --shortname-scheme
32                       Since v3.2.
33
34                       comma-separated priority list of license naming schemes
35                       to use for license identifiers
36                       (default value: unset (use verbose description))
37
38       --list-licenses Since v3.2.
39
40                       list identifiers for all detectable licenses and exit
41
42       --list-naming-schemes
43                       Since v3.2.
44
45                       list all available license naming schemes and exit
46
47   Selecting files
48       -c REGEX, --check=REGEX
49                       Since v2.10.10.
50
51                       regular expression of files to include when more than
52                       one PATH is provided
53                       (default value: common source files)
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55       -i REGEX, --ignore=REGEX
56                       Since v2.10.10.
57
58                       regular expression of files to skip when more than one
59                       PATH is provided
60                       (default value: some backup and VCS files)
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62       -r, --recursive Since v2.10.7.
63
64                       traverse directories recursively
65
66   Parsing contents
67       -l N, --lines=N Since v2.10.3.
68
69                       number of lines to parse from top of each file; implies
70                       optimistic search including only first cluster of
71                       detected copyrights or licenses; set to 0 to parse the
72                       whole file (and ignore --tail) (default value: 60)
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74       --tail=N        Since v2.15.10.
75
76                       number of bytes to parse from bottom of each file; set
77                       to 0 to avoid parsing from end of file
78                       (default value: 5000 (roughly 60 lines))
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80       -e CODEC, --encoding=CODEC
81                       Since v2.15.10.
82
83                       try decode source files from the specified codec, with
84                       "iso-8859-1" as fallback
85                       (default value: unset (no decoding))
86
87   Reporting results
88       --[no-]verbose  Since v2.10.3.
89
90                       add header of each file to license information
91
92       --copyright     Since v2.10.7.
93
94                       add copyright statements to license information
95
96       -s, --skipped   Since v2.15.10.
97
98                       print to STDERR files in PATHs matching neither --check
99                       nor --ignore
100
101       -m, --machine   Since v2.12.2.
102
103                       print license information as "TAB"-separated fields,
104                       for processing with line-oriented tools like "awk" and
105                       "sort" (NB! --verbose will kill readability)
106
107       --[no-]deb-machine
108                       Since v3.0.0.
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110                       print license information like a Debian copyright file;
111                       implies --copyright and --shortname-scheme=debian,spdx
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113       --list-delimiter=PRINTF
114                       Since v3.0.18.
115
116                       printf-string used between multiple plain list items in
117                       Debian copyright file
118                       (default value: '\n ' (NEWLINE SPACE))
119
120       --rfc822-delimiter=PRINTF
121                       Since v3.0.18.
122
123                       printf-string used between multiple RFC822-style items
124                       in Debian copyright file
125                       (default value: '\n  ' (NEWLINE SPACE SPACE))
126
127       --copyright-delimiter=PRINTF
128                       Since v3.0.19.
129
130                       printf-string used between years and owners in Debian
131                       copyright file (default value: ', ' (COMMA SPACE))
132
133       --[no-]merge-licenses
134                       Since v3.0.0.
135
136                       merge same-licensed files in Debian copyright file
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138   General
139       -h, --help      print help message and exit
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141       -v, --version   print version and copyright information and exit
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ENVIRONMENT

144       NO_COLOR
145             If defined, will disable color.  Consulted before COLOR.
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147       COLOR Can be set to 0 to explicitly disable colors.  The default is to
148             use color when connected to a terminal.
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150       LOG_LEVEL =item QUIET =item VERBOSE =item DEBUG =item TRACE
151             Used to emit varying details about discoveries to STDERR.  See
152             Log::Any::Adapter::Screen for more details.
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154       LOG_PREFIX
155             The default formatter groks these variables.  See formatter in
156             Log::Any::Adapter::Screen for more details.
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CAVEATS

159       The exact output may change between releases, due to the inherently
160       fragile scanning of unstructured data, and the ongoing improvements to
161       detection patterns.  For some level of stability, use one of the
162       machine-readable output formats and define a --shortname-scheme.
163
164       Option --deb-fmt was deprecated since v3.2.  Please use option
165       --shortname-scheme=debian,spdx instead.
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AUTHOR

204       Jonas Smedegaard "<dr@jones.dk>"
205

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

207       This program is based on the script "licensecheck" from the KDE SDK,
208       originally introduced by Stefan Westerfeld "<stefan@space.twc.de>".
209
210         Copyright © 2007, 2008 Adam D. Barratt
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212         Copyright © 2012 Francesco Poli
213
214         Copyright © 2016-2021 Jonas Smedegaard
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216         Copyright © 2017-2021 Purism SPC
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218       This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it
219       under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published
220       by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3, or (at your option)
221       any later version.
222
223       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
224       WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
225       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
226       Affero General Public License for more details.
227
228       You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public
229       License along with this program.  If not, see
230       <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
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234perl v5.34.0                      2021-08-30                   LICENSECHECK(1)