NAME

       deb822 - Debian RFC822 control data format

DESCRIPTION

       The  package  management  system  manipulates data represented in a common format, known as control data,
       stored in control files.  Control files are used for source packages, binary packages  and  the  .changes
       files  which  control  the  installation  of  uploaded  files (dpkg's internal databases are in a similar
       format).

SYNTAX

       A control file consists of one or more paragraphs of fields (the paragraphs are also  sometimes  referred
       to as stanzas).  The paragraphs are separated by empty lines.  Parsers may accept lines consisting solely
       of  U+0020  SPACE and U+0009 TAB as paragraph separators, but control files should use empty lines.  Some
       control files allow only one paragraph; others allow several, in which case each paragraph usually refers
       to a different package.  (For example, in source packages, the  first  paragraph  refers  to  the  source
       package,  and  later paragraphs refer to binary packages generated from the source.)  The ordering of the
       paragraphs in control files is significant.

       Each paragraph consists of a series of data fields.  Each field consists of the field name followed by  a
       colon  (U+003A  ‘:’),  and then the data/value associated with that field.  The field name is composed of
       US-ASCII characters excluding control characters, space, and colon (i.e., characters in the ranges U+0021
       ‘!’ through U+0039 ‘9’, and U+003B ‘;’ through U+007E ‘~’, inclusive).  Field names must not  begin  with
       the comment character (U+0023 ‘#’), nor with the hyphen character (U+002D ‘-’).

       The  field  ends  at  the  end  of  the  line  or  at  the end of the last continuation line (see below).
       Horizontal whitespace (U+0020 SPACE and U+0009 TAB) may occur immediately before or after the  value  and
       is  ignored  there; it is conventional to put a single space after the colon.  For example, a field might
       be:
              Package: dpkg
       the field name is Package and the field value dpkg.

       Empty field values are only permitted in source package control files (debian/control).  Such fields  are
       ignored.

       A paragraph must not contain more than one instance of a particular field name.

       There are three types of fields:

       simple The  field,  including  its  value, must be a single line.  Folding of the field is not permitted.
              This is the default field type if the definition of the field does not specify a different type.

       folded The value of a folded field is a logical line that may span several lines.  The  lines  after  the
              first  are  called  continuation  lines  and  must  start  with  a  U+0020  SPACE or a U+0009 TAB.
              Whitespace, including any newlines, is not significant in the field values of folded fields.

              This folding method is similar to RFC5322, allowing control files that contain only one  paragraph
              and no multiline fields to be read by parsers written for RFC5322.

       multiline
              The  value  of  a multiline field may comprise multiple continuation lines.  The first line of the
              value, the part on the same line as the field name, often has special significance or may have  to
              be empty.  Other lines are added following the same syntax as the continuation lines of the folded
              fields.  Whitespace, including newlines, is significant in the values of multiline fields.

       Whitespace  must  not appear inside names (of packages, architectures, files or anything else) or version
       numbers, or between the characters of multi-character version relationships.

       The presence and purpose of a field, and the syntax of its value may  differ  between  types  of  control
       files.

       Field  names  are  not  case-sensitive, but it is usual to capitalize the field names using mixed case as
       shown below.  Field values are case-sensitive unless the description of the field says otherwise.

       Paragraph separators (empty lines) and lines consisting only of U+0020 SPACE  and  U+0009  TAB,  are  not
       allowed  within  field  values  or  between  fields.   Empty lines in field values are usually escaped by
       representing them by a U+0020 SPACE followed by a dot (U+002E ‘.’).

       Lines starting with U+0023 ‘#’, without any  preceding  whitespace  are  comments  lines  that  are  only
       permitted  in  source  package  control files (debian/control) and in deb-origin(5) files.  These comment
       lines are ignored, even between two continuation lines.  They do not end logical lines.

       All control files must be encoded in UTF-8.

SEE ALSO

       RFC822, RFC5322.

1.19.7                                             2022-05-25                                          deb822(5)