licensecheck - simple license checker for source files

Author

       Jonas Smedegaard "<dr@jones.dk>"

Caveats

       The  exact  output  may  change  between releases, due to the inherently fragile scanning of unstructured
       data, and the ongoing improvements to detection patterns.  For some level of stability, use  one  of  the
       machine-readable output formats and define a --shortname-scheme.

       Option --deb-fmt was deprecated since v3.2.  Please use option --shortname-scheme=debian,spdx instead.

Copyright And License

       This program is based on the script "licensecheck" from the KDE  SDK,  originally  introduced  by  Stefan
       Westerfeld "<stefan@space.twc.de>".

         Copyright © 2007, 2008 Adam D. Barratt

         Copyright © 2012 Francesco Poli

         Copyright © 2016-2022 Jonas Smedegaard

         Copyright © 2017-2022 Purism SPC

       This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero
       General  Public  License  as  published  by  the  Free Software Foundation, either version 3, or (at your
       option) any later version.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY  WARRANTY;  without  even
       the  implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU Affero General
       Public License for more details.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License along  with  this  program.   If
       not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

perl v5.36.0                                       2023-08-28                                   LICENSECHECK(1p)

Description

licensecheck attempts to determine the license that applies to each file passed to it, by searching the
       start of the file for text belonging to various licenses.

       If any of the arguments passed are directories, licensecheck will add the files contained within to the
       list of files to process.

       When multiple PATHs are provided, only files matching --check and not --ignore are checked.

Environment

       NO_COLOR
             If defined, will disable color.  Consulted before COLOR.

       COLOR Can be set to 0 to explicitly disable colors.  The default is to use  color  when  connected  to  a
             terminal.

       LOG_LEVEL =item QUIET =item VERBOSE =item DEBUG =item TRACE
             Used  to emit varying details about discoveries to STDERR when verbosity is not set using either of
             options --quiet, --verbose, --debug or --trace.  See Log::Any::Adapter::Screen for more details.

       LOG_PREFIX
             The default formatter groks these variables.  See formatter in Log::Any::Adapter::Screen  for  more
             details.

Name

       licensecheck - simple license checker for source files

Options

Resolvingpatterns--shortname-schemeSincev3.2.

comma-separated priority list of license naming schemes to use for license identifiers
(default value: unset (use verbose description))

--list-licensesSincev3.2.

list identifiers for all detectable licenses and exit

--list-naming-schemesSincev3.2.

list all available license naming schemes and exit

Selectingfiles-cREGEX, --check=REGEXSincev2.10.10.

regular expression of files to include when more than one PATH is provided
(default value: common source files)

-iREGEX, --ignore=REGEXSincev2.10.10.

regular expression of files to skip when more than one PATH is provided
(default value: some backup and VCS files)

-r, --recursiveSincev2.10.7.

traverse directories recursively

Parsingcontents-lN, --lines=NSincev2.10.3.

number of lines to parse from top of each file; implies optimistic search including only
first cluster of detected copyrights or licenses; set to 0 to parse the whole file (and
ignore --tail) (default value: 60)

--tail=NSincev2.15.10.

number of bytes to parse from bottom of each file when parsing only from top of each file
and finding nothing there; set to 0 to avoid parsing from end of file (or set --lines to
0 and ignore this setting) (default value: 5000 (roughly 60 lines))

-eCODEC, --encoding=CODECSincev2.15.10.

try decode source files from the specified codec, with "iso-8859-1" as fallback
(default value: unset (no decoding))

Reportingresults--copyrightSincev2.10.7.

add copyright statements to license information

-s, --skippedSincev3.3.0.

Log files in PATHs matching neither --check nor --ignore as warnings
(default: log as debug)

-m, --machineSincev2.12.2.

print license information as "TAB"-separated fields, for processing with line-oriented
tools like "awk" and "sort"

--[no-]deb-machineSincev3.0.0.

print license information like a Debian copyright file; implies --copyright and
--shortname-scheme=debian,spdx--list-delimiter=PRINTFSincev3.0.18.

printf-string used between multiple plain list items in Debian copyright file
(default value: '\n' (NEWLINE SPACE))

--rfc822-delimiter=PRINTFSincev3.0.18.

printf-string used between multiple RFC822-style items in Debian copyright file
(default value: '\n' (NEWLINE SPACE SPACE))

--copyright-delimiter=PRINTFSincev3.0.19.

printf-string used between years and owners in Debian copyright file
(default value: ',' (COMMA SPACE))

--[no-]merge-licensesSincev3.0.0.

merge same-licensed files in Debian copyright file

General-h, --help print help message and exit

-v, --version print version and copyright information and exit

--quiet, --verbose, --debug, --traceSincev3.3.0.

Emit only error messages to STDERR (with option --quiet), or (in addition errors and
warnings) also notices/debug/traces. The more "noisy" option wins if several are set.
(default: emit errors and warnings

Synopsis

           licensecheck [ --help | --version ]

           licensecheck [ --list-licenses | --list-naming-schemes ]

           licensecheck [OPTION...] PATH [PATH...]