NAME

       dctrl2xml - Debian control data to XML converter

SYNOPSIS

       dctrl2xml [-x | -j] [-f FILE]

DESCRIPTION

       dctrl2xml  is a tool that converts Debian control data into an XML representation. It can be used to con‐
       vert data which is normally found in debian/control, .changes, .dsc, Packages, Sources, and similar files
       to XML.

       For most fields dctrl2xml just uses the field name as element name and the field data as element content.
       For other fields, such as package interrelationship fields (Depends, Build-Depends, etc.)  or  the  Files
       field  in  .changes or Sources files, dctrl2xml additionally parses their field data to represent it in a
       more fine-structured form.

OPTIONS

       For a full summary of options, run dctrl2xml --help.

       --version
              Show dctrl2xml's version number.

       -h, --help
              Show help about options.

       -f FILE, --file=FILE
              Read Debian control data from file FILE instead of standard input.  FILE can  be  either  a  plain
              text file or a gzip, bzip2 or ZIP file.

       -x, --xml
              Output Debian control data as XML (default).

       -j, --json
              Output Debian control data as JSON.

EXAMPLES

       dctrl2xml -f /var/lib/dpkg/available
              Convert the whole dpkg(1) available file to XML and print it to standard output. This is a typical
              stress test for dctrl2xml.

       apt-cache show hello build-essential | dctrl2xml
              Convert the package records of the hello and build-essential packages to XML and print it to stan‐
              dard  output.  This is an example of how dctrl2xml can be used in pipes where it reads the control
              data from standard input.

       apt-cache showsrc hello | dctrl2xml | xmllint --format -
              This is similar to  the  above  example,  except  that  the  xmllint(1)  tool  (which  is  in  the
              libxml2-utils  Debian package) is used to reformat and reindent dctrl2xml's output to make it more
              human readable and that the source package records of the hello package are used.

       apt-cache showsrc hello | dctrl2xml -j
              In this example hello's source package record is printed as JSON instead of XML.

SEE ALSO

       deb-control(5)

AUTHOR

       Written by Frank S. Thomas <fst@debian.org>.

                                                 20 August 2010                                     dctrl2xml(1)