dsc - Debian source packages' control file format
filename.dsc
Each Debian source package is composed of a .dsc 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
Package-List,
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
source package. The field value is used by programs acting on a source
package to interpret the list of files in the source package and determine
how to unpack it. The syntax of the field value is a numeric major
revision (“0-9”), a period (“.”), a numeric
minor revision (“0-9”), and then an optional subtype after
whitespace (“ \t”), which if specified is a lowercase
alphanumeric (“a-z0-9”) word in parentheses
(“()”). The subtype is optional in the syntax but may be
mandatory for particular source format revisions.
The source formats currently supported by dpkg are 1.0,
2.0, 3.0 (native), 3.0 (quilt), 3.0 (git),
3.0 (bzr) and 3.0 (custom). See dpkg-source(1) for
their description.
-
Source: source-name (required)
- The value of this field determines the package name, and is
used to generate file names by most installation tools.
-
Binary: binary-package-list
- This folded field lists binary packages which this source
package can produce, separated by commas.
This field has now been superseded by the Package-List field, which
gives enough information about what binary packages are produced on which
architecture, build-profile and other involved restrictions.
-
Architecture: arch-list (recommended)
- A list of architectures and architecture wildcards
separated by spaces which specify the type of hardware this package can be
compiled for. Common architecture names and architecture wildcards are
amd64, armel, i386, linux-any,
any-amd64, etc.
Note that the all value is meant for packages that are architecture
independent, and any for packages that are architecture dependent.
The list may include (or consist solely of) the special value all.
When the list contains the architecture wildcard any, the only
other value allowed in the list is all.
The field value is generally generated from Architecture fields from
in the debian/control in the source package.
-
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).
-
Origin: name
- The name of the distribution this package is originating
from.
-
Maintainer: fullname-email (recommended)
- 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.
-
Uploaders: fullname-email-list
- Lists all the names and email addresses of co-maintainers
of the package, in the same format as the Maintainer field.
Multiple co-maintainers should be separated by a comma.
-
Description short-description
- long-description
- The format for the source 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.
-
Homepage: url
- The upstream project home page url.
-
Standards-Version: version-string
(recommended)
- This documents the most recent version of the distribution
policy standards this package complies with.
-
Vcs-Browser: url
- The url of a web interface to browse the Version
Control System repository.
-
Vcs-Arch: url
-
Vcs-Bzr: url
-
Vcs-Cvs: url
-
Vcs-Darcs: url
-
Vcs-Git: url
-
Vcs-Hg: url
-
Vcs-Mtn: url
-
Vcs-Svn: url
- These fields declare the url of the Version Control
System repository used to maintain this package. See
deb-src-control(5) for more details.
-
Testsuite: name-list
- This field declares that the source package contains the
specified test suites. The value is a comma-separated list of test suites.
If the autopkgtest value is present, a debian/tests/control
is expected to be present, if the file is present but not the value, then
dpkg-source will automatically add it, preserving previous
values.
-
Testsuite-Triggers: package-list
- This field declares the comma-separated union of all test
dependencies ( Depends fields in debian/tests/control file),
with all restrictions removed, and OR dependencies flattened (that is,
converted to separate AND relationships), except for binaries generated by
this source package and its meta-dependency equivalent @.
Rationale: this field is needed because otherwise to be able to get the test
dependencies, each source package would need to be unpacked.
-
Build-Depends: package-list
-
Build-Depends-Arch: package-list
-
Build-Depends-Indep: package-list
-
Build-Conflicts: package-list
-
Build-Conflicts-Arch: package-list
-
Build-Conflicts-Indep: package-list
- These fields declare relationships between the source
package and packages used to build it. They are discussed in the
deb-src-control(5) manpage.
- Package-List:
- package package-type section
priority key-value-list
- This multiline field contains a list of binary packages
generated by this source package.
The package is the binary package name.
The package-type is the binary package type, usually deb,
another common value is udeb.
The section and priority match the binary package fields of
the same name.
The key-value-list is a space separated
key=value list, and the currently known optional keys
are:
- arch
- The architecture restriction from the binary package
Architecture field, with spaces converted to
‘,’.
- profile
- The normalized build-profile restriction formula from the
binary package Build-Profile field, with ORs converted to
‘+’ and ANDs to ‘,’.
- protected
- If the binary package is protected, this key will contain
the value of the Protected field, that is a yes value.
Supported since dpkg 1.20.1.
- essential
- If the binary package is essential, this key will contain
the value of the Essential field, that is a yes value.
-
Files: (required)
-
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: MD5 for Files, 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
the checksum, a space, the file size, a space, and the file name.
These fields list all files that make up the source package. The list of
files in these fields must match the list of files in the other related
fields.
The
Format field conflates the format for the
.dsc file itself and
the format of the extracted source package.
deb822(5),
deb-src-control(5),
deb-version(7),
dpkg-source(1).