NAME

       Dpkg::Control::HashCore - parse and manipulate a block of RFC822-like fields

DESCRIPTION

       The Dpkg::Control::Hash object is a hash-like representation of a set of RFC822-like
       fields. The fields names are case insensitive and are always capitalized the same when
       output (see field_capitalize function in Dpkg::Control::Fields).  The order in which
       fields have been set is remembered and is used to be able to dump back the same content.
       The output order can also be overridden if needed.

       You can store arbitrary values in the hash, they will always be properly escaped in the
       output to conform to the syntax of control files. This is relevant mainly for multilines
       values: while the first line is always output unchanged directly after the field name,
       supplementary lines are modified. Empty lines and lines containing only dots are prefixed
       with " ." (space + dot) while other lines are prefixed with a single space.

       During parsing, trailing spaces are stripped on all lines while leading spaces are
       stripped only on the first line of each field.

FUNCTIONS

       my $c = Dpkg::Control::Hash->new(%opts)
           Creates a new object with the indicated options. Supported options are:

           allow_pgp
                   Configures the parser to accept PGP signatures around the control information.
                   Value can be 0 (default) or 1.

           allow_duplicate
                   Configures the parser to allow duplicate fields in the control information.
                   Value can be 0 (default) or 1.

           drop_empty
                   Defines if empty fields are dropped during the output. Value can be 0
                   (default) or 1.

           name    The user friendly name of the information stored in the object. It might be
                   used in some error messages or warnings. A default name might be set depending
                   on the type.

       $c->set_options($option, %opts)
           Changes the value of one or more options.

       my $value = $c->get_option($option)
           Returns the value of the corresponding option.

       $c->load($file)
           Parse the content of $file. Exits in case of errors. Returns true if some fields have
           been parsed.

       $c->parse_error($file, $fmt, ...)
           Prints an error message and dies on syntax parse errors.

       $c->parse($fh, $description)
           Parse a control file from the given filehandle. Exits in case of errors.  $description
           is used to describe the filehandle, ideally it's a filename or a description of where
           the data comes from. It's used in error messages. Returns true if some fields have
           been parsed.

       $c->find_custom_field($name)
           Scan the fields and look for a user specific field whose name matches the following
           regex: /X[SBC]*-$name/i. Return the name of the field found or undef if nothing has
           been found.

       $c->get_custom_field($name)
           Identify a user field and retrieve its value.

       $c->save($filename)
           Write the string representation of the control information to a file.

       my $str = $c->output()
       "$c"
           Get a string representation of the control information. The fields are sorted in the
           order in which they have been read or set except if the order has been overridden with
           set_output_order().

       $c->output($fh)
           Print the string representation of the control information to a filehandle.

       $c->set_output_order(@fields)
           Define the order in which fields will be displayed in the output() method.

       $c->apply_substvars($substvars)
           Update all fields by replacing the variables references with the corresponding value
           stored in the Dpkg::Substvars object.

CHANGES

   Version 1.01
       New method: parse_error().

AUTHOR

       Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>.