Firstly, thank you @npostavs for addressing the build warnings about the debian/changelog entry errors, which had been bothering me for some time. However, I think the proposed change is incomplete, as it introduces other issues:

1. The modification to .github/actions_scripts/getChangelog.pl changes the output from MarkDown to a single line per change.

   This is certainly useful for passing each line to dch, but the getChangeLog.pl script is also used in .github/actions_scripts/analyse_git_reference.py to create a MarkDown file containing the version release notes. analyse_git_reference.py is called from .github/workflows/autobuild.yml in the section create_release.

   The new output format will not be compatible with this requirement.

   Maybe instead leave getChangeLog.pl unchanged, and create instead a new script (e.g. getChangeLines.pl?) for use with dch, which could be called from distributions/build-debian-package-auto.sh? Or else provide a parameter to the script?

2. The debian/changelog produced by the new version of build-debian-package-auto.sh changes the maintainer information from what was used previously. After some experimentation, I found that I preferred the output if I changed the dch lines as follows:

   DEBFULLNAME=GitHubActions DEBEMAIL=noemail@example.com dch --nomultimaint --newversion "${VERSION}" ''
   

   (or some appropriate values - the above matches the old script) and:

   dch --nomultimaint "$entry"
   

After further experimentation, this is the current state of my build-debian-package-auto.sh:

#!/bin/sh -e

# Create deb files

cp -r debian ..
cd ..

# get the jamulus version from pro file
VERSION=$(cat Jamulus.pro | grep -oP 'VERSION = \K\w[^\s\\]*')

export DEBFULLNAME=GitHubActions DEBEMAIL=noemail@example.com

# Generate Changelog
echo -n generating changelog
rm -f debian/changelog
dch --create --package jamulus --empty --newversion "${VERSION}" ''
perl .github/actions_scripts/getChangelog.pl ChangeLog "${VERSION}" | while read entry
do
    echo -n .
    dch "$entry"
done
echo

echo "${VERSION} building..."

sed -i "s/é&%JAMVERSION%&è/${VERSION}/g" debian/control

debuild --preserve-env -b -us -uc

It uses --create, --package, --newversion and --empty to create a new debian/changelog file. The use of --empty causes a warning, which the man page says is expected, but it does avoid the spurious "Initial version" log entry.

It exports DEBFULLNAME and DEBEMAIL so they are available to all calls of dch. This also means --nomultimaint is not necessary.

1. but the getChangeLog.pl script is also used in .github/actions_scripts/analyse_git_reference.py

Ah, I missed that.

Or else provide a parameter to the script?

I went with this option.

After further experimentation, this is the current state of my build-debian-package-auto.sh:

Added to the PR.

@npostavs what is the Next action on this? Review, testing?

Yeah, I believe the code is ready, and I have addressed all of @softin's concerns.