Provided by: dpkg-dev_1.18.4ubuntu1.7_all 
NAME
deb-control - Debian packages' master control file format
SYNOPSIS
control
DESCRIPTION
Each Debian package contains the master control file, which contains a number of fields,
or comments when the line starts with ‘#’. Each field begins with a tag, such as Package
or Version (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 the case of the Description field, see below).
FIELDS
Package: package-name (required)
The value of this field determines the package name, and is used to generate file
names by most installation tools.
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(5).
Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
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.
Description: short-description (required)
long-description
The format for the 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.
Section: section
This is a general field that gives the package a category based on the software
that it installs. Some common sections are utils, net, mail, text, x11, etc.
Priority: priority
Sets the importance of this package in relation to the system as a whole. Common
priorities are required, standard, optional, extra, etc.
In Debian, the Section and Priority fields have a defined set of accepted values based on
the Policy Manual. A list of these values can be obtained from the latest version of the
debian-policy package.
Essential: yes|no
This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes. It denotes a package that
is required for proper operation of the system. Dpkg or any other installation tool
will not allow an Essential package to be removed (at least not without using one
of the force options).
Build-Essential: yes|no
This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes, and is commonly injected
by the archive software. It denotes a package that is required when building other
packages.
Architecture: arch|all
The architecture specifies which type of hardware this package was compiled for.
Common architectures are amd64, armel, i386, powerpc, etc. Note that the all
option is meant for packages that are architecture independent. Some examples of
this are shell and Perl scripts, and documentation.
Origin: name
The name of the distribution this package is originating from.
Bugs: url
The url of the bug tracking system for this package. The current used format is
bts-type://bts-address, like debbugs://bugs.debian.org.
Homepage: url
The upstream project home page url.
Tag: tag-list
List of tags describing the qualities of the package. The description and list of
supported tags can be found in the debtags package.
Multi-Arch: same|foreign|allowed|no
This field is used to indicate how this package should behave on a multi-arch
installations. The value same means that the package is co-installable with itself,
but it must not be used to satisfy the dependency of any package of a different
architecture from itself. The value foreign means that the package is not co-
installable with itself, but should be allowed to satisfy a non-arch-qualified
dependency of a package of a different arch from itself (if a dependency has an
explicit arch-qualifier then the value foreign is ignored). The value allowed
allows reverse-dependencies to indicate in their Depends field that they accept a
package from a foreign architecture by qualifying the package name with :any, but
has no effect otherwise. The value no is the default when the field is omitted, in
which case adding the field with an explicit no value is generally not needed.
Source: source-name
The name of the source package that this binary package came from, if different
than the name of the package itself.
Subarchitecture: value
Kernel-Version: value
Installer-Menu-Item: value
These fields are used by the debian-installer and are usually not needed. See
/usr/share/doc/debian-installer/devel/modules.txt from the debian-installer package
for more details about them.
Depends: package-list
List of packages that are required for this package to provide a non-trivial amount
of functionality. The package maintenance software will not allow a package to be
installed if the packages listed in its Depends field aren't installed (at least
not without using the force options). In an installation, the postinst scripts of
packages listed in Depends fields are run before those of the packages which depend
on them. On the opposite, in a removal, the prerm script of a package is run before
those of the packages listed in its Depends field.
Pre-Depends: package-list
List of packages that must be installed and configured before this one can be
installed. This is usually used in the case where this package requires another
package for running its preinst script.
Recommends: package-list
Lists packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual
installations. The package maintenance software will warn the user if they install
a package without those listed in its Recommends field.
Suggests: package-list
Lists packages that are related to this one and can perhaps enhance its usefulness,
but without which installing this package is perfectly reasonable.
The syntax of Depends, Pre-Depends, Recommends and Suggests fields is a list of groups of
alternative packages. Each group is a list of packages separated by vertical bar (or
“pipe”) symbols, ‘|’. The groups are separated by commas. Commas are to be read as
“AND”, and pipes as “OR”, with pipes binding more tightly. Each package name is
optionally followed by an architecture qualifier appended after a colon ‘:’, optionally
followed by a version number specification in parentheses.
An architecture qualifier name can be a real Debian architecture name (since dpkg 1.16.5)
or any (since dpkg 1.16.2). If omitted, the default is the current binary package
architecture. A real Debian architecture name will match exactly that architecture for
that package name, any will match any architecture for that package name if the package
has been marked as Multi-Arch: allowed.
A version number may start with a ‘>>’, in which case any later version will match, and
may specify or omit the Debian packaging revision (separated by a hyphen). Accepted
version relationships are ‘>>’ for greater than, ‘<<’ for less than, ‘>=’ for greater than
or equal to, ‘<=’ for less than or equal to, and ‘=’ for equal to.
Breaks: package-list
Lists packages that this one breaks, for example by exposing bugs when the named
packages rely on this one. The package maintenance software will not allow broken
packages to be configured; generally the resolution is to upgrade the packages
named in a Breaks field.
Conflicts: package-list
Lists packages that conflict with this one, for example by containing files with
the same names. The package maintenance software will not allow conflicting
packages to be installed at the same time. Two conflicting packages should each
include a Conflicts line mentioning the other.
Replaces: package-list
List of packages files from which this one replaces. This is used for allowing this
package to overwrite the files of another package and is usually used with the
Conflicts field to force removal of the other package, if this one also has the
same files as the conflicted package.
The syntax of Breaks, Conflicts and Replaces is a list of package names, separated by
commas (and optional whitespace). In the Breaks and Conflicts fields, the comma should be
read as “OR”. An optional architecture qualifier can also be appended to the package name
with the same syntax as above, but the default is any instead of the binary package
architecture. An optional version can also be given with the same syntax as above for the
Breaks, Conflicts and Replaces fields.
Provides: package-list
This is a list of virtual packages that this one provides. Usually this is used in
the case of several packages all providing the same service. For example, sendmail
and exim can serve as a mail server, so they provide a common package
(“mail-transport-agent”) on which other packages can depend. This will allow
sendmail or exim to serve as a valid option to satisfy the dependency. This
prevents the packages that depend on a mail server from having to know the package
names for all of them, and using ‘|’ to separate the list.
The syntax of Provides is a list of package names, separated by commas (and optional
whitespace). An optional architecture qualifier can also be appended to the package name
with the same syntax as above. If omitted, the default is the current binary package
architecture. An optional exact (equal to) version can also be given with the same syntax
as above (honored since dpkg 1.17.11).
Built-Using: package-list
This field lists extra source packages that were used during the build of this
binary package. This is an indication to the archive maintenance software that
these extra source packages must be kept whilst this binary package is maintained.
This field must be a list of source package names with strict ‘=’ version
relationships. Note that the archive maintenance software is likely to refuse to
accept an upload which declares a Built-Using relationship which cannot be
satisfied within the archive.
EXAMPLE
# Comment
Package: grep
Essential: yes
Priority: required
Section: base
Maintainer: Wichert Akkerman <wakkerma@debian.org>
Architecture: sparc
Version: 2.4-1
Pre-Depends: libc6 (>= 2.0.105)
Provides: rgrep
Conflicts: rgrep
Description: GNU grep, egrep and fgrep.
The GNU family of grep utilities may be the "fastest grep in the west".
GNU grep is based on a fast lazy-state deterministic matcher (about
twice as fast as stock Unix egrep) hybridized with a Boyer-Moore-Gosper
search for a fixed string that eliminates impossible text from being
considered by the full regexp matcher without necessarily having to
look at every character. The result is typically many times faster
than Unix grep or egrep. (Regular expressions containing backreferencing
will run more slowly, however).
SEE ALSO
deb(5), deb-version(5), debtags(1), dpkg(1), dpkg-deb(1).