# Changelog Extractor

Parse and extract structured data from changelogs and release notes in multiple formats

> Canonical page: https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/changelog-extractor

- **Category:** Development

- **Keywords:** changelog, release, notes, version, parser, extractor, semantic versioning, git

## Overview

## Features

Extract and parse version information from various changelog formats:

- **Keep a Changelog**: Standard format with version headers and categorized changes
- **Conventional Commits**: Git commit message style with type and scope
- **GitHub Releases**: Release notes with feature lists and bug fixes
- **Auto-detection**: Automatically identifies the format used

## Extraction

Extracts comprehensive release data:
- **Version numbers**: Semantic versioning (e.g., 1.0.0, 2.1.3-beta)
- **Release dates**: When each version was released
- **Change categories**: Added, Changed, Deprecated, Removed, Fixed, Security
- **Change descriptions**: Full text of each change entry
- **Scope and breaking changes**: Additional metadata from conventional commits

## Analysis

Provides detailed statistics:
- Total number of releases
- First and latest version
- Changes per category per release
- Unreleased changes detection
- Total change count across all versions

## Export

Export structured JSON data suitable for:
- API documentation
- Release notes generation
- Version comparison tools
- Migration guides

## Inputs

- **Changelog Content** (textarea): Paste your changelog or release notes here...
- **Changelog Format** (select)
- **Include Full Change Descriptions** (checkbox): Include complete text for each change entry

## When to use

- When you need to extract version history from changelogs for documentation or analysis.
- When preparing release notes or migration guides by comparing software versions.
- When automating the parsing of changelogs in CI/CD pipelines or development workflows.

## How it works

- Input your changelog content by pasting text into the provided textarea.
- Select the changelog format or use auto-detection to identify it automatically.
- Configure options like including full descriptions, then extract to receive structured JSON data.

## Use cases

- Generating API documentation by extracting version changes and features.
- Creating comparison tools to show differences between software releases.
- Automating the generation of release notes for open-source projects.

## Frequently asked questions

### What changelog formats are supported?

The tool supports Keep a Changelog, Conventional Commits, GitHub Releases, and can auto-detect the format.

### Can I extract release dates from changelogs?

Yes, it extracts release dates for each version if available in the changelog.

### What data is included in the JSON output?

The output includes version numbers, release dates, change categories (e.g., Added, Fixed), change descriptions, and statistics like total releases.

### Is there a way to include full change descriptions?

Yes, you can enable the 'Include Full Change Descriptions' option to get complete text for each change entry.

### Does the tool detect unreleased changes?

Yes, it can detect and include unreleased changes if they are present in the changelog.

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## Samples

- [Changelog Extractor Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/changelog-extractor): Various changelog formats for testing changelog parsing and extraction tools
- [Markdown Link Extractor Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/markdown-with-links): Sample Markdown documents with various link types for testing the Markdown Link Extractor tool
- [Phone Number Extractor Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/phone-number-extractor): Collection of mixed text containing phone numbers from various countries for extraction testing
- [Web Image Processing Python Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/web-image-processing-python): Web Python image processing examples using PIL/Pillow including reading, saving, resizing, and format conversion

## Related content

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