NAME

       deb-triggers - package triggers

SYNOPSIS

       triggers

DESCRIPTION

       A  package  declares  its  relationship  to  some  trigger(s) by including a triggers file in its control
       archive (i.e. DEBIAN/triggers during package creation).

       This file contains directives, one per line. Leading and trailing whitespace  and  everything  after  the
       first # on any line will be trimmed, and empty lines will be ignored.

       The trigger control directives currently supported are:

       interest trigger-name
       interest-await trigger-name
       interest-noawait trigger-name

              Specifies  that the package is interested in the named trigger. All triggers in which a package is
              interested must be listed using this directive in the triggers control file.

              The “await” variants put the triggering package in triggers-awaited state  depending  on  how  the
              trigger   was  activated.   The  “noawait”  variant  does  not  put  the  triggering  packages  in
              triggers-awaited state, even if the triggering package declared an “await” activation (either with
              an activate-await or activate directive, or by  using  the  dpkg-trigger  --no-await  command-line
              option).   The  “noawait” variant should be used when the functionality provided by the trigger is
              not crucial.

       activate trigger-name
       activate-await trigger-name
       activate-noawait trigger-name

              Arranges that changes to this package's state will activate the  specified  trigger.  The  trigger
              will  be  activated at the start of the following operations: unpack, configure, remove (including
              for the benefit of a conflicting package), purge and deconfigure.

              The “await” variants only put the triggering package in triggers-awaited  state  if  the  interest
              directive  is  also  “await”.   The  “noawait”  variant  never  puts  the  triggering  packages in
              triggers-awaited state.  The “noawait” variant should be used when the functionality  provided  by
              the trigger is not crucial.

              If  this  package disappears during the unpacking of another package the trigger will be activated
              when the disappearance is noted towards the end of the unpack. Trigger processing, and  transition
              from  triggers-awaited  to installed, does not cause activations.  In the case of unpack, triggers
              mentioned in both the old and new versions of the package will be activated.

       Unknown directives are an error which will prevent installation of the package.

       The “-noawait” variants should always be favored when possible since triggering packages are not  put  in
       triggers-awaited  state  and  can  thus be immediately configured without requiring the processing of the
       trigger.  If the triggering packages are dependencies of other upgraded packages, it will avoid an  early
       trigger  processing run and make it possible to run the trigger only once as one of the last steps of the
       upgrade.

       The “-noawait” variants are supported since dpkg 1.16.1, and will lead to errors if used  with  an  older
       dpkg.

       The  “-await”  alias  variants  are supported since dpkg 1.17.21, and will lead to errors if used with an
       older dpkg.

       When a package provides an interest-noawait directive, any activation will  set  the  triggering  package
       into  “noawait”  mode,  regardless  of  the  awaiting mode requested by the activation (either “await” or
       “noawait”).  When a package provides an interest or interest-await directive, any activation will set the
       triggering package into “await” or “noawait“ depending on how it was activated.

SEE ALSO

       dpkg-trigger(1), dpkg(1), /usr/share/doc/dpkg-dev/triggers.txt.gz.

1.19.7                                             2022-05-25                                    deb-triggers(5)