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This field has now been superseded by the Package-List field, which gives enough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).