NAME¶
deb-src-control - Debian source packages' master control file format
SYNOPSIS¶
control
DESCRIPTION¶
Each Debian source package contains the master "control" file, which
contains at least 2 paragraphs, separated by a blank line. The first paragraph
lists all information about the source package in general, while each
following paragraph describes exactly one binary package. Each paragraph
consists of at least one field. A field starts with a fieldname, such as
Package or
Section (case insensitive), followed by a colon, the
body of the field and a newline. Multi-line fields are also allowed, but each
supplementary line, without a fieldname, should start with at least one space.
The content of the multi-line fields is generally joined to a single line by
the tools (except in the case of the
Description field, see below). To
insert empty lines into a multi-line field, insert a dot after the space.
Lines starting with a
'#' are treated as comments.
SOURCE FIELDS¶
- Source: source-package-name (required)
- The value of this field is the name of the source package, and should
match the name of the source package in the debian/changelog file. A
package name must consist only of lower case letters (a-z), digits (0-9),
plus (+) and minus (-) signs, and periods (.). Package names must be at
least two characters long and must start with an alphanumeric character.
- Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
- Should be in the format "Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@foo.com>",
and references the person who currently maintains the package, as opposed
to the author of the software or the original packager.
- Uploaders: fullname-email
- Lists all the names and email addresses of co-maintainers of the package,
in the same format as the Maintainer field. Multiple co-maintainers should
be separated by a comma.
- Standards-Version: version-string
- This documents the most recent version of the standards (which consists of
the Debian Policy Manual and referenced texts from the
debian-policy package) this package complies to.
- Homepage: url
- The upstream project home page URL.
- Bugs: url
- The url of the bug tracking system for this package. The current
used format is bts-type://bts-address, like
debbugs://bugs.debian.org. This field is usually not needed.
- Vcs-Arch: url
- Vcs-Bzr: url Vcs-Cvs: url Vcs-Darcs:
url Vcs-Git: url Vcs-Hg: url
Vcs-Mtn: url Vcs-Svn: url The url of
the Version Control System repository used to maintain this package.
Currently supported are Arch, Bzr (Bazaar), Cvs,
Darcs, Git, Hg (Mercurial), Mtn (Monotone) and
Svn (Subversion). Usually this field points to the latest version
of the package, such as the main branch or the trunk.
- Vcs-Browser: url
- The url of a webinterface to browse the Version Control System
repository.
- Origin: name
- The name of the distribution this package is originating from. This field
is usually not needed.
- Section: section
- This is a general field that gives the package a category based on the
software that it installs. Some common sections are "utils",
"net", "mail", "text", "x11", etc.
- Priority: priority
- Sets the importance of this package in relation to the system as a whole.
Common priorities are "required", "standard",
"optional", "extra", etc.
In Debian, the Section and Priority fields have a defined set
of accepted values based on the Policy Manual. A list of these values can
be obtained from the latest version of the debian-policy package.
- Build-Depends: package-list
- A list of packages that need to be installed and configured to be able to
build the source package. Including a dependency in this list has the same
effect as including it in both Build-Depends-Arch and
Build-Depends-Indep, with the additional effect of being used for
source-only builds.
- Build-Depends-Arch: package list
- Same as Build-Depends, but they are only needed when building the
architecture dependent packages. The Build-Depends are also
installed in this case. This field is supported since dpkg 1.16.4; in
order to build with older dpkg versions, Build-Depends should be
used instead.
- Build-Depends-Indep: package-list
- Same as Build-Depends, but they are only needed when building the
architecture independent packages. The Build-Depends are also
installed in this case.
- Build-Conflicts: package list
- A list of packages that should not be installed when the package is built,
for example because they interfere with the build system used. Including a
dependency in this list has the same effect as including it in both
Build-Conflicts-Arch and Build-Conflicts-Indep, with the
additional effect of being used for source-only builds.
- Build-Conflicts-Arch: package list
- Same as Build-Conflicts, but only when building the architecture
dependent packages. This field is supported since dpkg 1.16.4; in order to
build with older dpkg versions, Build-Conflicts should be used
instead.
- Build-Conflicts-Indep: package-list
- Same as Build-Conflicts, but only when building the architecture
independent packages.
The syntax of the
Build-Depends,
Build-Depends-Arch and
Build-Depends-Indep fields is a list of groups of alternative packages.
Each group is a list of packages separated by vertical bar (or
"pipe") symbols, "|". The groups are separated by commas.
Commas are to be read as "AND", and pipes as "OR", with
pipes binding more tightly. Each package name is optionally followed by a
version number specification in parentheses, an architecture specification in
square brackets, and a restriction formula consisting of one or more lists of
profile names in angle brackets.
The syntax of the
Build-Conflicts,
Build-Conflicts-Arch and
Build-Conflicts-Indep fields is a list of comma-separated package
names, where the comma is read as an "AND". Specifying alternative
packages using a "pipe" is not supported. Each package name is
optionally followed by a version number specification in parentheses, an
architecture specification in square brackets, and a restriction formula
consisting of one or more lists of profile names in angle brackets.
A version number may start with a ">>", in which case any later
version will match, and may specify or omit the Debian packaging revision
(separated by a hyphen). Accepted version relationships are
">>" for greater than, "<<" for less than,
">=" for greater than or equal to, "<=" for less
than or equal to, and "=" for equal to.
An architecture specification consists of one or more architecture names,
separated by whitespace. Exclamation marks may be prepended to each of the
names, meaning "NOT".
A restriction formula consists of one or more restriction lists, separated by
whitespace. Each restriction list is enclosed in angle brackets. Items in the
restriction list are build profile names, separated by whitespace and can be
prefixed with an exclamation mark, meaning "NOT". A restriction
formula represents a disjunctive normal form expression.
Note that dependencies on packages in the
build-essential set can be
omitted and that declaring build conflicts against them is impossible. A list
of these packages is in the build-essential package.
BINARY FIELDS¶
Note that the
Priority,
Section and
Homepage fields can
also be in a binary paragraph to override the global value from the source
package.
- Package: binary-package-name (required)
- This field is used to name the binary package name. The same restrictions
as to a source package name apply.
- Architecture: arch|all|any (required)
- The architecture specifies on which type of hardware this package runs.
For packages that run on all architectures, use the any value. For
packages that are architecture independent, such as shell and Perl scripts
or documentation, use the all value. To restrict the packages to a
certain set of architectures, specify the architecture names, separated by
a space. It's also possible to put architecture wildcards in that list
(see dpkg-architecture(1) for more information about them).
- Package-Type: deb|udeb
- This field defines the type of the package. "udeb" is for
size-constrained packages used by the debian installer. "deb" is
the default value, it's assumed if the field is absent. More types might
be added in the future.
- Subarchitecture: value
- Kernel-Version: value Installer-Menu-Item:
value These fields are used by the debian-installer and are usually
not needed. See /usr/share/doc/debian-installer/devel/modules.txt from the
debian-installer package for more details about them.
- Essential: yes|no
- Multi-Arch: same|foreign|allowed|no
Tag: tag-list Description: short-description
(required) These fields are described in the deb-control(5) manual
page, as they are copied literally to the control file of the binary
package.
- Depends: package-list
- Pre-Depends: package-list Recommends:
package-list Suggests: package-list Breaks:
package-list Enhances: package-list Replaces:
package-list Conflicts: package-list Provides:
package-list Built-Using: package-list These fields
declare relationships between packages. They are discussed in the
deb-control(5) manpage and in the debian-policy package.
USER-DEFINED FIELDS¶
It is allowed to add additional user-defined fields to the control file. The
tools will ignore these fields. If you want the fields to be copied over to
the output files, such as the binary packages, you need to use a custom naming
scheme: the fields should start with a X, followed by one or more of the
letters BCS and a hypen. If the letter B is used, the field will appear in the
control file in the binary package, see
deb-control(5), for the letter
S in the source package control file as constructed by
dpkg-source(1)
and for the letter C in the upload control (.changes) file. Note that the
X[BCS]- prefixes are stripped when the fields are copied over to the output
files. A field
XC-Approved-By will appear as
Approved-By in the
changes file and will not appear in the binary or source package control
files.
Take into account that these user-defined fields will be using the global
namespace, which might at some point in the future collide with officially
recognized fields. To avoid such potential situation you can prefix those
fields with
Private-, such as
XB-Private-New-Field.
EXAMPLE¶
# Comment
Source: dpkg
Section: admin
Priority: required
Maintainer: Dpkg Developers <debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org>
# this field is copied to the binary and source packages
XBS-Upstream-Release-Status: stable
Homepage: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg
Vcs-Browser: https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/dpkg/dpkg.git
Vcs-Git: git://anonscm.debian.org/dpkg/dpkg.git
Standards-Version: 3.7.3
Build-Depends: pkg-config, debhelper (>= 4.1.81),
libselinux1-dev (>= 1.28-4) [!linux-any]
Package: dpkg-dev
Section: utils
Priority: optional
Architecture: all
# this is a custom field in the binary package
XB-Mentoring-Contact: Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
Depends: dpkg (>= 1.14.6), perl5, perl-modules, cpio (>= 2.4.2-2),
bzip2, lzma, patch (>= 2.2-1), make, binutils, libtimedate-perl
Recommends: gcc | c-compiler, build-essential
Suggests: gnupg, debian-keyring
Conflicts: dpkg-cross (<< 2.0.0), devscripts (<< 2.10.26)
Replaces: manpages-pl (<= 20051117-1)
Description: Debian package development tools
This package provides the development tools (including dpkg-source)
required to unpack, build and upload Debian source packages.
.
Most Debian source packages will require additional tools to build;
for example, most packages need make and the C compiler gcc.
SEE ALSO¶
deb-control(5),
deb-version(5),
dpkg-source(1)