Provided by: dpkg-dev_1.19.7ubuntu3.2_all 
NAME
dsc - Debian source packages' control file format
SYNOPSIS
filename.dsc
DESCRIPTION
Each Debian source package is composed of a .dsc 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 Package-List, 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 source package. The field value is
used by programs acting on a source package to interpret the list of files in the source package
and determine how to unpack it. The syntax of the field value is a numeric major revision
(“0-9”), a period (“.”), a numeric minor revision (“0-9”), and then an optional subtype after
whitespace (“ \t”), which if specified is a lowercase alphanumeric (“a-z0-9”) word in parentheses
(“()”). The subtype is optional in the syntax but may be mandatory for particular source format
revisions.
The source formats currently supported by dpkg are 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 (native), 3.0 (quilt), 3.0 (git),
3.0 (bzr) and 3.0 (custom). See dpkg-source(1) for their description.
Source: source-name (required)
The value of this field determines the package name, and is used to generate file names by most
installation tools.
Binary: binary-package-list
This folded field lists binary packages which this source package can produce, separated by
commas.
This field has now been superseded by the Package-List field, which gives enough information about
what binary packages are produced on which architecture, build-profile and other involved
restrictions.
Architecture: arch-list (recommended)
A list of architectures and architecture wildcards separated by spaces which specify the type of
hardware this package can be compiled for. Common architecture names and architecture wildcards
are amd64, armel, i386, linux-any, any-amd64, etc.
Note that the all value is meant for packages that are architecture independent, and any for
packages that are architecture dependent. The list may include (or consist solely of) the special
value all. When the list contains the architecture wildcard any, the only other value allowed in
the list is all.
The field value is generally generated from Architecture fields from in the debian/control in the
source package.
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).
Origin: name
The name of the distribution this package is originating from.
Maintainer: fullname-email (recommended)
Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@foo.com>”, and is typically the person who created
the package, as opposed to the author of the software that was packaged.
Uploaders: fullname-email-list
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.
Description short-description
long-description
The format for the source package description is a short brief summary on the first line (after
the Description field). The following lines should be used as a longer, more detailed
description. Each line of the long description must be preceded by a space, and blank lines in
the long description must contain a single ‘.’ following the preceding space.
Homepage: url
The upstream project home page url.
Standards-Version: version-string (recommended)
This documents the most recent version of the distribution policy standards this package complies
with.
Vcs-Browser: url
The url of a web interface to browse the Version Control System repository.
Vcs-Arch: url
Vcs-Bzr: url
Vcs-Cvs: url
Vcs-Darcs: url
Vcs-Git: url
Vcs-Hg: url
Vcs-Mtn: url
Vcs-Svn: url
These fields declare the url of the Version Control System repository used to maintain this
package. See deb-src-control(5) for more details.
Testsuite: name-list
This field declares that the source package contains the specified test suites. The value is a
comma-separated list of test suites. If the autopkgtest value is present, a debian/tests/control
is expected to be present, if the file is present but not the value, then dpkg-source will
automatically add it, preserving previous values.
Testsuite-Triggers: package-list
This field declares the comma-separated union of all test dependencies (Depends fields in
debian/tests/control file), with all restrictions removed, and OR dependencies flattened (that is,
converted to separate AND relationships), except for binaries generated by this source package and
its meta-dependency equivalent @.
Rationale: this field is needed because otherwise to be able to get the test dependencies, each
source package would need to be unpacked.
Build-Depends: package-list
Build-Depends-Arch: package-list
Build-Depends-Indep: package-list
Build-Conflicts: package-list
Build-Conflicts-Arch: package-list
Build-Conflicts-Indep: package-list
These fields declare relationships between the source package and packages used to build it. They
are discussed in the deb-src-control(5) manpage.
Package-List:
package package-type section priority key-value-list
This multiline field contains a list of binary packages generated by this source package.
The package is the binary package name.
The package-type is the binary package type, usually deb, another common value is udeb.
The section and priority match the binary package fields of the same name.
The key-value-list is a space separated key=value list, and the currently known optional keys are:
arch The architecture restriction from the binary package Architecture field, with spaces
converted to ‘,’.
profile
The normalized build-profile restriction formula from the binary package Build-Profile
field, with ORs converted to ‘+’ and ANDs to ‘,’.
essential
If the binary package is essential, this key will contain the value of the Essential field,
that is a yes value.
Files: (required)
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: MD5 for Files, 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 the checksum, a space, the file size, a space, and the file name.
These fields list all files that make up the source package. The list of files in these fields
must match the list of files in the other related fields.
BUGS
The Format field conflates the format for the .dsc file itself and the format of the extracted source
package.
SEE ALSO
deb-src-control(5), deb-version(7), dpkg-source(1).