Provided by: debmake_4.2.2-1_all 
NAME
debmake - program to make the Debian source package
SYNOPSIS
debmake [-h] [-c | -k] [-n | -a package-version.orig.tar.gz | -d | -t ] [-p package] [-u version] [-r
revision] [-z extension] [-b "binarypackage, ...]" [-e foo@example.org] [-f "firstname lastname"] [-i
"buildtool" | -j] [-l license_file] [-m] [-o file] [-q] [-s] [-v] [-w "addon, ..."] [-x [01234]] [-y]
[-P] [-T]
DESCRIPTION
debmake helps to build the Debian package from the upstream source. Normally, this is done as follows:
• The upstream tarball is downloaded as the package-version.tar.gz file.
• It is untared to create many files under the package-version/ directory.
• debmake is invoked in the package-version/ directory possibly without any arguments.
• Files in the package-version/debian/ directory are manually adjusted.
• dpkg-buildpackage (usually from its wrapper debuild or pdebuild) is invoked in the package-version/
directory to make debian packages.
Make sure to protect the arguments of the -b, -f, -l, and -w options from the shell interference by
quoting them properly.
optional arguments:
-h, --help
show this help message and exit.
-c, --copyright
scan source for copyright+license text and exit.
• -c: simple output style
• -cc: normal output style (similar to the debian/copyright file)
• -ccc: debug output style
-k, --kludge
compare the debian/copyright file with the source and exit.
The debian/copyright file must be organized to list the generic file patterns before the specific
exceptions.
• -k: basic output style
• -kk: verbose output style
-n, --native
make a native Debian source package without .orig.tar.gz. This makes the “3.0 (native)” format
package.
If you are thinking to package a Debian specific source tree with debian/* in it into a native Debian
package, please think otherwise. You can use “debmake -d -i debuild” or “debmake -t -i debuild” to
make the “3.0 (quilt)” format non-native Debian package. The only difference is that the
debian/changelog file must use the non-native version scheme: version-revision. The non-native
package is more friendly to the downstream distributions.
-a package-version.tar.gz, --archive package-version.tar.gz
use the upstream source tarball directly. (-p, -u, -z: overridden)
The upstream tarball may be specified as package_version.orig.tar.gz and tar.gz for all cases may be
tar.bz2, or tar.xz.
If the specified upstream tarball name contains uppercase letters, the Debian package name is
generated by converting them to lowercase letters.
If the specified argument is the URL (http://, https://, or ftp://) to the upstream tarball, the
upstream tarball is downloaded from the URL using wget or curl.
-d, --dist
run “make dist” equivalent first to generate upstream tarball and use it.
“debmake -d” is designed to run in the package/ directory hosting the upstream VCS with the build
system supporting “make dist” equivalents. (automake/autoconf, Python distutils, ...)
-t, --tar
run “tar” to generate upstream tarball and use it
“debmake -t” is designed to run in the package/ directory hosting the upstream VCS. Unless you
provide the upstream version with the -u option or with the debian/changelog file, a snapshot
upstream version is generated in the 0~%y%m%d%H%M format, e.g., 0~1403012359, from the UTC date and
time. The generated tarball excludes the debian/ directory found in the upstream VCS. (It also
excludes typical VCS directories: .git/ .hg/ .svn/ .CVS/)
-p package, --package package
set the Debian package name.
-u version, --upstreamversion version
set the upstream package version.
-r revision, --revision revision
set the Debian package revision.
-z extension, --targz extension
set the tarball type, extension=(tar.gz|tar.bz2|tar.xz) (alias: z, b, x)
-b "binarypackage[:type],...", --binaryspec "binarypackage[:type],..."
set binary package specs by the comma separated list of binarypackage:type pairs, e.g., in full form
“foo:bin,foo-doc:doc,libfoo1:lib,libfoo1-dbg:dbg,libfoo-dev:dev” or in short form
“,-doc,libfoo1,libfoo1-dbg, libfoo-dev”.
Here, binarypackage is the binary package name; and optional type is chosen from the following type
values:
• bin: C/C++ compiled ELF binary code package (any, foreign) (default, alias: "", i.e.,
null-string)
• data: Data (fonts, graphics, ...) package (all, foreign) (alias: da)
• dbg: Debug symbol package (any, same) (alias: db)
• dev: Library development package (any, same) (alias: de)
• doc: Documentation package (all, foreign) (alias: do)
• lib: Library package (any, same) (alias: l)
• perl: Perl script package (all, foreign) (alias: pl)
• python: Python script package (all, foreign) (alias: py)
• python3: Python3 script package (all, foreign) (alias: py3)
• ruby: Ruby script package (all, foreign) (alias: rb)
• script: Shell script package (all, foreign) (alias: sh)
The pair values in the parentheses, such as (any, foreign), are the Architecture and Multi-Arch
stanza values set in the debian/control file.
In many cases, the debmake command makes good guesses for type from binarypackage. If type is not
obvious, type is set to bin. For example, libfoo sets type to lib, and font-bar sets type to data,
...
If the source tree contents do not match settings for type, debmake warns you.
-e foo@example.org, --email foo@example.org
set e-mail address.
The default is taken from the value of the environment variable $DEBEMAIL.
-f "firstname lastname", --fullname "firstname lastname"
set the fullname.
The default is taken from the value of the environment variable $DEBFULLNAME.
-i "buildtool", --invoke "buildtool"
invoke "buildtool" at the end of execution. buildtool may be “dpkg-buildpackage”, “debuild”,
“pdebuild”, “pdebuild --pbuilder cowbuilder”, etc..
The default is not to execute any program.
-j, --judge
run dpkg-depcheck to judge build dependencies and identify file paths. Log files are in the parent
directory.
• package.build-dep.log: Log file for dpkg-depcheck.
• package.install.log: Log file recording files in the debian/tmp directory.
-l "license_file,...", --license "license_file,..."
add formatted license text to the end of the debian/copyright file holding license scan results
The default is add COPYING and LICENSE and license_file needs to list only the additional file names
all separated by “,”.
-m, --monoarch
force packages to be non-multiarch.
-o file, --option file
read optional parameters from the file. (This is not for everyday use.)
The file is sourced as the Python3 code at the end of para.py. For example, the package description
can be specified by the following file.
para['desc'] = 'program short description'
para['desc_long'] = '''\
program long description which you wish to include.
.
Empty line is space + .
You keep going on ...
'''
-q, --quitearly
quit early before creating files in the debian/ directory.
-s, --spec
use upstream spec (setup.py for Python, etc.) for the package description.
-v, --version
show version information.
-w "addon,...", --with "addon,..."
add extra arguments to the --with option of the dh(1) command as addon in debian/rules.
The addon values are listed all separated by “,”, e.g., “-w "python2,autoreconf"”.
For Autotools based packages, setting autoreconf as addon forces to run “autoreconf -i -v -f” for
every package building. Otherwise, autotools-dev as addon is used as default.
For Autotools based packages, if they install Python programs, python2 as addon is needed for
packages with “compat < 9” since this is non-obvious. But for setup.py based packages, python2 as
addon is not needed since this is obvious and it is automatically set for the dh(1) command by the
debmake command when it is required.
-x n, --extra n
generate extra configuration files as templates.
The number n changes which configuration templates are generated.
• -x0: bare minimum configuration files. (default if these files exist already)
• -x1: ,, + desirable configuration files. (default for new packages)
• -x2: ,, + interesting configuration files. (recommended for experts, multi binary aware)
• -x3: ,, + unusual configuration template files with the extra .ex suffix to ease their removal.
(recommended for new users) To use these as configuration files, rename their file names into
ones without the .ex suffix.
• -x4: ,, + copyright file examples.
-y, --yes
“force yes” for all prompts. (without option: “ask [Y/n]”; doubled option: “force no”)
-P, --pedantic
pedantically check auto-generated files.
-T, --tutorial
output tutorial comment lines in template files.
EXAMPLES
For a well behaving source, you can build a good-for-local-use installable single Debian binary package
easily with one command. Test install of such a package generated in this way offers a good alternative
to traditional “make install” to the /usr/local directory since the Debian package can be removed cleanly
by the “dpkg -P ...” command. Here are some examples of how to build such test packages. (These should
work in most cases. If the -d does not work, try -t instead.)
For a typical C program source tree packaged with autoconf/automake:
• debmake -d -i debuild
For a typical python module source tree:
• debmake -s -d -b":python" -i debuild
For a typical python module in the package-version.tar.gz archive:
• debmake -s -a package-version.tar.gz -b":python" -i debuild
For a typical perl module in the Package-version.tar.gz archive:
• debmake -a Package-version.tar.gz -b":perl" -i debuild
HELPER PACKAGES
Packaging may require installation of some additional specialty helper packages.
• Python3 program may require the dh-python package.
• Autotools (Autoconf + Automake) build system may require autotools-dev or dh-autoreconf package.
• Ruby program may require the gem2deb package.
• Java program may require the javahelper package.
• Gnome programs may require the gobject-introspection package.
• etc.
CAVEAT
debmake is meant to provide template files for the package maintainer to work on. Comment lines started
by # contain the tutorial text. You must remove or edit such comment lines before uploading to the Debian
archive.
There are some limitations for what characters may be used as a part of the Debian package. The most
notable limitation is the prohibition of uppercase letters in the package name. Here is the summary in
the regular expression.
• Upstream package name (-p): [-+.a-z0-9]{2,}
• Binary package name (-b): [-+.a-z0-9]{2,}
• Upstream version (-u): [0-9][-+.:~a-z0-9A-Z]*
• Debian revision (-r): [0-9][+.~a-z0-9A-Z]*
See the exact definition in Chapter 5 - Control files and their fields of the “Debian Policy Manual”.
DEBUG
The character set in the environment variable $DEBUG determines the logging output level.
• i: print information
• p: list all global parameters
• d: list parsed parameters for all binary packages
• f: input filename for the copyright scan
• y: year/name split of copyright line
• s: line scanner for format_state
• b: content_state scan loop: begin-loop
• m: content_state scan loop: after regex match
• e: content_state scan loop: end-loop
• c: print copyright section text
• l: print license section text
• a: print author/translator section text
• k: sort key for debian/copyright stanza
• n: scan result of debian/copyright (“debmake -k”)
Use this as:
$ DEBUG=pdfbmeclak debmake ...
AUTHOR
Copyright © 2014-2015 Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>
LICENSE
MIT License
SEE ALSO
The debmake-doc package provides the “Guide for Debian Maintainers” in the plain text, HTML and PDF
formats under the /usr/share/doc/debmake-doc/ directory.
Also, please read the original Debian New Maintainers’ Guide provided by the the maint-guide package.
See also dpkg-source(1), deb-control(5), debhelper(7), dh(1), dpkg-buildpackage(1), debuild(1), quilt(1),
dpkg-depcheck(1), pdebuild(1), pbuilder(8), cowbuilder(8), gbp-buildpackage(1), gbp-pq(1), and
git-pbuilder(1) manpages.