Provided by: dpkg-dev_1.17.5ubuntu5.8_all 
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-*: 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 profile specification 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 profile specification 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 profile specification consists of one or more profile names, prefixed with the
"profile." namespace, separated by whitespace. Exclamation marks may be prepended to each
of the names, meaning "NOT".
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
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, which as a side effect will make dpkg-deb not warn on them as
unknown fields.
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: http://git.debian.org/?p=dpkg/dpkg.git
Vcs-Git: git://git.debian.org/git/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)