bionic (5) deb-changes.5.gz

Provided by: dpkg-dev_1.19.0.5ubuntu2.4_all bug

NAME

       deb-changes - Debian changes file format

SYNOPSIS

       filename.changes

DESCRIPTION

       Each Debian upload is composed of a .changes control file, which contains a number of fields.  Each field
       begins with a tag, such as Source or Binary (case insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body of  the
       field.   Fields  are  delimited  only by field tags.  In other words, field text may be multiple lines in
       length, but the installation tools will generally join lines  when  processing  the  body  of  the  field
       (except in case of the multiline fields Description, Changes, Files, Checksums-Sha1 and Checksums-Sha256,
       see below).

       The control data might be enclosed in an OpenPGP ASCII Armored signature, as specified in RFC4880.

FIELDS

       Format: format-version (required)
              The value of this field declares the format version of the file.  The syntax of the field value is
              a  version  number  with a major and minor component.  Backward incompatible changes to the format
              will bump the major version, and backward compatible changes (such as field additions)  will  bump
              the minor version.  The current format version is 1.8.

       Date: release-date (required)
              The  date  the  package  was built or last edited.  It must be in the same format as the date in a
              deb-changelog(5) entry.

              The value of this field is usually extracted from the debian/changelog file.

       Source: source-name [(source-version)] (required)
              The name of the source package.  If the source version differs from the binary version,  then  the
              source-name  will be followed by a source-version in parenthesis.  This can happen when the upload
              is a binary-only non-maintainer upload.

       Binary: binary-package-list (required)
              This folded field is a space-separated list of binary packages to upload.

       Architecture: arch-list
              Lists the architectures of the files currently being uploaded.  Common  architectures  are  amd64,
              armel,  i386,  etc.   Note  that  the  all  value  is  meant  for  packages  that are architecture
              independent.  If the source for the package is also being uploaded, the special  entry  source  is
              also present.  Architecture wildcards must never be present in the list.

       Version: version-string (required)
              Typically,  this  is  the  original package's version number in whatever form the program's author
              uses.  It may also include a Debian revision number (for non-native packages).  The  exact  format
              and sorting algorithm are described in deb-version(7).

       Distribution: distributions (required)
              Lists  one or more space-separated distributions where this version should be installed when it is
              uploaded to the archive.

       Urgency: urgency (recommended)
              The urgency of the upload.  The currently known values, in increasing order of urgency, are:  low,
              medium, high, critical and emergency.

       Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
              Should  be  in  the  format  “Joe  Bloggs  <jbloggs@example.org>”, and is typically the person who
              created the package, as opposed to the author of the software that was packaged.

       Changed-By: fullname-email
              Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs  <jbloggs@example.org>”,  and  is  typically  the  person  who
              prepared the package changes for this release.

       Description: (recommended)
        binary-package-name - binary-package-summary
              This multiline field contains a list of binary package names followed by a space, a dash (‘-’) and
              their possibly truncated short descriptions.

       Closes: bug-number-list
              A space-separated list of bug report numbers that  have  been  resolved  with  this  upload.   The
              distribution archive software might use this field to automatically close the referred bug numbers
              in the distribution bug tracking system.

       Binary-Only: yes
              This field denotes that the upload is a binary-only non-maintainer build.  It originates from  the
              binary-only=yes key/value from the changelog matadata entry.

       Built-For-Profiles: profile-list
              This  field  specifies  a  whitespace  separated list of build profiles that this upload was built
              with.

       Changes: (required)
        changelog-entries
              This multiline field contains the concatenated text of all changelog entries that are part of  the
              upload.   To  make  this  a valid multiline field empty lines are replaced with a single full stop
              (‘.’) and all lines are indented by one  space  character.   The  exact  content  depends  on  the
              changelog format.

       Files: (required)
        md5sum size section priority filename
              This  multiline field contains a list of files with an md5sum, size, section and priority for each
              one.

              The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as  the  field  name  followed  by  a
              colon) is always empty.  The content of the field is expressed as continuation lines, one line per
              file.  Each line consists of space-separated entries describing the file:  the  md5sum,  the  file
              size, the file section, the file priority, and the file name.

              This  field  lists  all files that make up the upload.  The list of files in this field must match
              the list of files in the other related Checksums fields.

       Checksums-Sha1: (required)
       Checksums-Sha256: (required)
        checksum size filename
              These multiline fields contain a list of files with a checksum  and  size  for  each  one.   These
              fields  have  the  same  syntax  and  differ  only  in  the  checksum  algorithm  used:  SHA-1 for
              Checksums-Sha1 and SHA-256 for Checksums-Sha256.

              The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as  the  field  name  followed  by  a
              colon) is always empty.  The content of the field is expressed as continuation lines, one line per
              file.  Each line consists of space-separated entries describing the file: the checksum,  the  file
              size, and the file name.

              These fields list all files that make up the upload.  The list of files in these fields must match
              the list of files in the Files field and the other related Checksums fields.

BUGS

       The Files field is inconsistent with the other Checksums fields.  The  Change-By  and  Maintainer  fields
       have  confusing names.  The Distribution field contains information about what is commonly referred to as
       a suite.

SEE ALSO

       deb-src-control(5), deb-version(7).