.\" dpkg manual page - dpkg-gencontrol(1) .\" .\" Copyright © 1995-1996 Ian Jackson .\" Copyright © 2000 Wichert Akkerman .\" Copyright © 2006, 2012-2013, 2015 Guillem Jover .\" Copyright © 2007-2008 Rapha\(:el Hertzog .\" .\" This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify .\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by .\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or .\" (at your option) any later version. .\" .\" This 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 General Public License for more details. .\" .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License .\" along with this program. If not, see . . .TH dpkg\-gencontrol 1 "2018-06-26" "1.18.25" "dpkg suite" .nh .SH NAME dpkg\-gencontrol \- generate Debian control files . .SH SYNOPSIS .B dpkg\-gencontrol .RI [ option ...] . .SH DESCRIPTION .B dpkg\-gencontrol reads information from an unpacked Debian source tree and generates a binary package control file (which defaults to debian/tmp/DEBIAN/control); during this process it will simplify the relation fields. .sp Thus .BR Pre\-Depends ", " Depends ", " Recommends " and " Suggests are simplified in this order by removing dependencies which are known to be true according to the stronger dependencies already parsed. It will also remove any self-dependency (in fact it will remove any dependency which evaluates to true given the current version of the package as installed). Logically it keeps the intersection of multiple dependencies on the same package. The order of dependencies is preserved as best as possible: if any dependency must be discarded due to another dependency appearing further in the field, the superseding dependency will take the place of the discarded one. .sp The other relation fields .RB ( Enhances ", " Conflicts ", " Breaks ", " Replaces " and " Provides ) are also simplified individually by computing the union of the various dependencies when a package is listed multiple times in the field. .sp .B dpkg\-gencontrol also adds an entry for the binary package to .BR debian/files . . .SH OPTIONS .TP .BI \-v version Sets the version number of the binary package which will be generated. .TP .BI \-V name = value Set an output substitution variable. See \fBdeb\-substvars\fP(5) for discussion of output substitution. .TP .BI \-T substvars-file Read substitution variables in .IR substvars-file ; the default is .BR debian/substvars . This option can be used multiple times to read substitution variables from multiple files (since dpkg 1.15.6). .TP .BI \-D field = value Override or add an output control file field. .TP .BI \-U field Remove an output control file field. .TP .BI \-c control-file Specifies the main source control file to read information from. The default is .BR debian/control . .TP .BI \-l changelog-file Specifies the changelog file to read information from. The default is .BR debian/changelog . .TP .BI \-f files-list-file Read or write the list of files to be uploaded here, rather than using .BR debian/files . .TP .BI \-F changelog-format Specifies the format of the changelog. See \fBdpkg\-parsechangelog\fP(1) for information about alternative formats. .TP .BI \-p package Generate information for the binary package .IR package . If the source control file lists only one binary package then this option may be omitted; otherwise it is essential to select which binary package's information to generate. .TP .BI \-n filename Assume the filename of the package will be .I filename instead of the normal package_version_arch.deb filename. .TP .BR \-is ", " \-ip ", " \-isp These options are ignored for compatibility with older versions of the dpkg build scripts but are now deprecated. Previously they were used to tell \fBdpkg\-gencontrol\fP to include the Section and Priority fields in the control file. This is now the default behaviour. If you want to get the old behaviour you can use the .B \-U option to delete the fields from the control file. .TP .BI \-P package-build-dir Tells .B dpkg\-source that the package is being built in .I package-build-dir instead of .BR debian/tmp . This value is used to find the default value of the .B Installed\-Size substitution variable and control file field (using .BR du ), and for the default location of the output file. .TP .BR \-O [\fIfilename\fP] Print the control file to standard output (or \fIfilename\fP if specified, since dpkg 1.17.2), rather than to .B debian/tmp/DEBIAN/control (or .IB package-build-dir /DEBIAN/control if .B \-P was used). .TP .BR \-? ", " \-\-help Show the usage message and exit. .TP .BR \-\-version Show the version and exit. . .SH FILES .TP .B debian/control The main source control information file, giving version-independent information about the source package and the binary packages it can produce. .TP .B debian/files The list of generated files which are part of the upload being prepared. .B dpkg\-gencontrol adds the presumed filenames of binary packages whose control files it generates here. .SH SEE ALSO .ad l .BR deb\-substvars (5), .BR deb\-src\-control (5), .BR deb\-changelog (5), .BR deb\-control (5).