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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-05-06 00:45:20 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-05-06 00:45:20 +0000
commit9a08cbfcc1ef900a04580f35afe2a4592d7d6030 (patch)
tree004cc7027bca2f2c0bcb5806527c8e0c48df2d6e /man/deb822.man
parentInitial commit. (diff)
downloaddpkg-upstream/1.19.8.tar.xz
dpkg-upstream/1.19.8.zip
Adding upstream version 1.19.8.upstream/1.19.8upstream
Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
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+.\" dpkg manual page - deb822(5)
+.\"
+.\" Copyright © 1995-1996 Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
+.\" Copyright © 2015 Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
+.\"
+.\" This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+.\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
+.\" (at your option) any later version.
+.\"
+.\" This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+.\" GNU General Public License for more details.
+.\"
+.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+.\" along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+.
+.TH deb822 5 "%RELEASE_DATE%" "%VERSION%" "dpkg suite"
+.nh
+.SH NAME
+deb822 \- Debian RFC822 control data format
+.
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+The package management system manipulates data represented in a common
+format, known as \fIcontrol data\fP, stored in \fIcontrol files\fP.
+Control files are used for source packages, binary packages and the
+\fB.changes\fP files which control the installation of uploaded
+files (\fBdpkg\fP's internal databases are in a similar format).
+.
+.SH SYNTAX
+A control file consists of one or more paragraphs of fields (the paragraphs
+are also sometimes referred to as stanzas).
+The paragraphs are separated by empty lines.
+Parsers may accept lines consisting solely of U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP and
+U+0009 \fBTAB\fP as paragraph separators, but control files should use
+empty lines.
+Some control files allow only one paragraph; others allow several, in which
+case each paragraph usually refers to a different package.
+(For example, in source packages, the first paragraph refers to the source
+package, and later paragraphs refer to binary packages generated from the
+source.)
+The ordering of the paragraphs in control files is significant.
+
+Each paragraph consists of a series of data fields.
+Each field consists of the field name followed by a colon
+(U+003A ‘\fB:\fP’), and then the data/value associated with that field.
+The field name is composed of US-ASCII characters excluding control
+characters, space, and colon (i.e., characters in the ranges
+U+0021 ‘\fB!\fP’ through U+0039 ‘\fB9\fP’, and
+U+003B ‘\fB;\fP’ through U+007E ‘\fB~\fP’, inclusive).
+Field names must not begin with the comment character
+(U+0023 ‘\fB#\fP’), nor with the hyphen character
+(U+002D ‘\fB\-\fP’).
+
+The field ends at the end of the line or at the end of the last continuation
+line (see below).
+Horizontal whitespace (U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP and U+0009 \fBTAB\fP) may occur
+immediately before or after the value and is ignored there; it is conventional
+to put a single space after the colon.
+For example, a field might be:
+.RS
+.nf
+Package: dpkg
+.fi
+.RE
+the field name is \fBPackage\fP and the field value \fBdpkg\fP.
+
+Empty field values are only permitted in source package control files
+(\fIdebian/control\fP).
+Such fields are ignored.
+
+A paragraph must not contain more than one instance of a particular field name.
+
+There are three types of fields:
+
+.RS 0
+.TP
+.B simple
+The field, including its value, must be a single line.
+Folding of the field is not permitted.
+This is the default field type if the definition of the field does not
+specify a different type.
+.TP
+.B folded
+The value of a folded field is a logical line that may span several lines.
+The lines after the first are called continuation lines and must start with
+a U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP or a U+0009 \fBTAB\fP.
+Whitespace, including any newlines, is not significant in the field values
+of folded fields.
+
+This folding method is similar to RFC5322, allowing control files that
+contain only one paragraph and no multiline fields to be read by parsers
+written for RFC5322.
+.TP
+.B multiline
+The value of a multiline field may comprise multiple continuation lines.
+The first line of the value, the part on the same line as the field name,
+often has special significance or may have to be empty.
+Other lines are added following the same syntax as the continuation lines
+of the folded fields.
+Whitespace, including newlines, is significant in the values of multiline
+fields.
+.RE
+
+Whitespace must not appear inside names (of packages, architectures, files
+or anything else) or version numbers, or between the characters of
+multi-character version relationships.
+
+The presence and purpose of a field, and the syntax of its value may differ
+between types of control files.
+
+Field names are not case-sensitive, but it is usual to capitalize the field
+names using mixed case as shown below.
+Field values are case-sensitive unless the description of the field says
+otherwise.
+
+Paragraph separators (empty lines) and lines consisting only of
+U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP and U+0009 \fBTAB\fP, are not allowed within field
+values or between fields.
+Empty lines in field values are usually escaped by representing them by a
+U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP followed by a dot (U+002E ‘\fB.\fP’).
+
+Lines starting with U+0023 ‘\fB#\fP’, without any preceding whitespace
+are comments lines that are only permitted in source package control files
+(\fIdebian/control\fP) and in \fBdeb\-origin\fP(5) files.
+These comment lines are ignored, even between two continuation lines.
+They do not end logical lines.
+
+All control files must be encoded in UTF-8.
+.
+.\" .SH EXAMPLE
+.\" .RS
+.\" .nf
+.\" .fi
+.\" .RE
+.
+.SH SEE ALSO
+.BR RFC822 ,
+.BR RFC5322 .