Provided by:
dpkg-dev_1.16.1.2ubuntu7_all 
NAME
deb-split - Debian multi-part binary package format
SYNOPSIS
filename.deb
DESCRIPTION
The multi-part .deb format is used to split big packages into smaller
pieces to ease transport in small media.
FORMAT
The file is an ar archive with a magic value of !<arch>. The file
names might contain a trailing slash (since dpkg 1.15.6).
The first member is named debian-split and contains a series of lines,
separated by newlines. Currently eight lines are present:
o The format version number, 2.1 at the time this manual page was
written.
o The package name.
o The package version.
o The md5sum of the package.
o The total size of the package.
o The maximum part size.
o The current part number, followed by a slash and the total amount
of parts (as in '1/10').
o The package architecture (since dpkg 1.16.1).
Programs which read multi-part archives should be prepared for
additional lines to be present, and should ignore these if this is the
case.
If the version number has changed, an incompatible change has been made
and the program should stop. If it has not, then the program should be
able to safely continue, unless it encounters an unexpected member in
the archive (except at the end), as described below.
The second, last required member is named data.N, where N denotes the
part number. It contains the raw part data.
These members must occur in this exact order. Current implementations
should ignore any additional members after data.N. Further members may
be defined in the future, and (if possible) will be placed after these
two.
SEE ALSO
deb(5), dpkg-split(1).