deb-changes - Debian changes file format
filename.changes
Each Debian upload is composed of a .changes control file, which contains a
number of fields in
deb822(5) format.
Each field begins with a tag, such as
Source or
Binary (case
insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body of the field (case sensitive
unless stated otherwise). 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
case of the multiline fields
Description,
Changes,
Files,
Checksums-Sha1 and
Checksums-Sha256, see below).
The control data might be enclosed in an OpenPGP ASCII Armored signature, as
specified in RFC4880.
-
Format: format-version (required)
- The value of this field declares the format version of the
file. The syntax of the field value is a version number with a major and
minor component. Backward incompatible changes to the format will bump the
major version, and backward compatible changes (such as field additions)
will bump the minor version. The current format version is
1.8.
-
Date: release-date (required)
- The date the package was built or last edited. It must be
in the same format as the date in a deb-changelog(5) entry.
The value of this field is usually extracted from the
debian/changelog file.
-
Source: source-name
[(source-version )] (required)
- The name of the source package. If the source version
differs from the binary version, then the source-name will be
followed by a source-version in parenthesis. This can happen when
the upload is a binary-only non-maintainer upload.
-
Binary: binary-package-list (required in
context)
- This folded field is a space-separated list of binary
packages to upload. If the upload is source-only, then the field is
omitted (since dpkg 1.19.3).
-
Architecture: arch-list
- Lists the architectures of the files currently being
uploaded. Common architectures are amd64, armel,
i386, etc. Note that the all value is meant for packages
that are architecture independent. If the source for the package is also
being uploaded, the special entry source is also present.
Architecture wildcards must never be present in the list.
-
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(7).
-
Distribution: distributions (required)
- Lists one or more space-separated distributions where this
version should be installed when it is uploaded to the archive.
-
Urgency: urgency (recommended)
- The urgency of the upload. The currently known values, in
increasing order of urgency, are: low, medium, high,
critical and emergency.
-
Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
- Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs
<[email protected]>”, and is typically the person who
created the package, as opposed to the author of the software that was
packaged.
-
Changed-By: fullname-email
- Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs
<[email protected]>”, and is typically the person who
prepared the package changes for this release.
-
Description: (recommended)
- binary-package-name -
binary-package-summary
- This multiline field contains a list of binary package
names followed by a space, a dash (‘ -’) and their
possibly truncated short descriptions. If the upload is source-only, then
the field is omitted (since dpkg 1.19.3).
-
Closes: bug-number-list
- A space-separated list of bug report numbers for bug
reports that have been resolved with this upload. The distribution archive
software might use this field to automatically close the referred bug
numbers in the distribution bug tracking system.
- Binary-Only: yes
- This field denotes that the upload is a binary-only
non-maintainer build. It originates from the binary-only=yes
key/value from the changelog metadata entry.
-
Built-For-Profiles: profile-list
- This field specifies a whitespace separated list of build
profiles that this upload was built with.
-
Changes: (required)
- changelog-entries
- This multiline field contains the concatenated text of all
changelog entries that are part of the upload. To make this a valid
multiline field empty lines are replaced with a single full stop
(‘.’) and all lines are indented by one space character. The
exact content depends on the changelog format.
-
Files: (required)
- md5sum size section
priority filename
- This multiline field contains a list of files with an
md5sum, size, section and priority for each one.
The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as the field
name followed by a colon) is always empty. The content of the field is
expressed as continuation lines, one line per file. Each line consists of
space-separated entries describing the file: the md5sum, the file size,
the file section, the file priority, and the file name.
This field lists all files that make up the upload. The list of files in
this field must match the list of files in the other related
Checksums fields.
-
Checksums-Sha1: (required)
-
Checksums-Sha256: (required)
- checksum size filename
- These multiline fields contain a list of files with a
checksum and size for each one. These fields have the same syntax and
differ only in the checksum algorithm used: SHA-1 for
Checksums-Sha1 and SHA-256 for Checksums-Sha256.
The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as the field
name followed by a colon) is always empty. The content of the field is
expressed as continuation lines, one line per file. Each line consists of
space-separated entries describing the file: the checksum, the file size,
and the file name.
These fields list all files that make up the upload. The list of files in
these fields must match the list of files in the Files field and
the other related Checksums fields.
The
Files field is inconsistent with the other
Checksums fields.
The
Changed-By and
Maintainer fields have confusing names. The
Distribution field contains information about what is commonly referred
to as a suite.
deb822(5),
deb-src-control(5),
deb-version(7).