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+This is a list of features that are scheduled to be removed from dpkg.
+
+What: fallback of dpkg-source to source format "1.0" without explicit debian/source/format
+Status: deprecated
+When: 1.17.x
+Warning: program and lintian (missing-debian-source-format)
+Why:
+ With the support of multiple source formats, the user should be explicit
+ about the desired source format. The fallback to "1.0" is there only for
+ backwards compatibility but will be removed once all packages have the
+ debian/source/format file. This is unlikely to happen before 1.17.x.
+
+What --forget-old-unavail (dpkg option)
+Status: obsolete
+When: 1.16.x
+Warning: program
+Why:
+ Purged packages are properly cleaned up now by dpkg, and old unavailable
+ leftovers are automatically cleaned up on database parsing. So there's no
+ need anymore for this manual action.
+
+What: --control-path (dpkg-query option)
+Status: deprecated
+When: 1.18.x
+Warning: man page
+ This was a semi-public interface now superseded by --control-list and
+ --control-show, which are a better interface as they do not rely on any
+ specific database layout. Although there might still be cases where it's
+ required to avoid hardcoding the database layout, and it will be kept as
+ long as there's legitimate uses for it and no viable replacements.
+
+What: -L (dpkg-parsechangelog option)
+Status: obsolete
+Since: 1.18.8
+When: 1.19.x
+Warning: program
+Why:
+ The custom parsers have been switched from programs to perl modules,
+ and this option has no use any longer. The caller can set PERL5LIB or
+ PERLLIB to specify the perl module search path now.
+
+History of feature removals
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+What: cleanup-info (program)
+Status: removed
+Since: 1.15.0
+Why:
+ This program was needed long time ago to fixup broken info dir files
+ generated by buggy install-info programs. Should not be needed anymore.
+
+What: --largemem, --smallmem (dpkg option)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.15.1
+Why:
+ These options have been no-ops for a long time.
+
+What: --force-auto-select (dpkg option)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.15.1
+Why:
+ This option has been a no-op for so long, that there's no traces on git
+ history of its usage.
+
+What: recommended, contrib, base (priority)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.15.1
+Why:
+ These priorities have been superseded by either other fields or values in
+ other fields.
+
+What: 822-date (program)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.15.1
+Why:
+ Should switch to use 'date -R'.
+
+What: support of custom changelog parsers understanding only -v
+Status: removed
+Since: 1.15.5
+Why:
+ The debian changelog parser has been enhanced. It supports new options
+ that enable more fine-grained retrieval of information. Those new options
+ will be used by scripts (like dpkg-genchanges).
+ .
+ Custom changelog parsers must be updated to support the new API (see
+ dpkg-parsechangelog(1) and README.api).
+
+What: support for environment variable DPKG_NO_TSTP
+Status: removed
+Since: 1.15.6
+Why:
+ Having two ways to let the administrator get to a shell on conffile prompt
+ is confusing, it also impedes setting up a consistent environment to be
+ used by external programs.
+
+What: support for PGP
+Status: removed
+When: 1.16.4
+Warning: program
+Why:
+ PGP is not part of Debian and GnuPG has been the standard tool for digital
+ signatures for several years already. Supporting only GnuPG enables us to
+ rely on some of its features.
+
+What: -u, --udeb (dpkg-scanpackages option)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.16.4
+Warning: program
+Why:
+ This option has been superseded by -tudeb.
+
+What: support for custom changelog parsers as programs
+Status: removed
+Since: 1.18.8
+Why:
+ Using programs to implement the custom changelog parsers was very inefficient
+ as it required to parse the custom changelog, output deb822 formatted entries
+ to then parse that and output again with the desired format.
+ .
+ These were implemented as programs because at the time the perl code in dpkg
+ was not using perl modules, so it was not easy to extend. Using perl modules
+ now is cleaner and allows for a faster implementation.
+ .
+ In addition there's no known users in Debian, so it was deemed safe to remove
+ the support without a transition.
+
+What: Source-Version (substvar)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.18.11
+Warning: program, lintian (substvar-source-version-is-deprecated)
+Why:
+ The semantics of Source-Version were misleading when applied to binNMUs.
+ Should switch to use binary:Version or source:Version substvars.
+ .
+ The code got changed to emit errors.
+
+What: -Zlzma (dpkg-deb option value)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.18.11
+Warning: program
+Why:
+ LZMA compression has some format deficiencies fixed by XZ, which is what
+ upstream has replaced it with, as such there's no point in continuing to
+ support compressing new .deb files with that format, although unpacking
+ will be kept being supported to handle existing compressed files.
+
+What: -Zbzip2 (dpkg-deb option value)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.18.11
+Warning: program
+Why:
+ bzip2 compression has been superseded by xz when it comes to size, and
+ gzip is still faster, in Debian there's really not many packages using
+ that compression, as such there's no point in continuing to support
+ compressing new .deb files with that format, although unpacking
+ will be kept being supported to handle existing compressed files.
+
+What: --new, --old (dpkg-deb options)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.18.11
+Warning: program
+Why:
+ These options are not future-proof, and do not give the caller any
+ guarantee of what exact format version will be used to produce the
+ output file. They were replaced with a new --deb-format option.
+
+What: --print-installation-architecture (dpkg option)
+Status: removed
+When: 1.18.11
+Warning: program
+Why:
+ Obsoleted long time ago (2005-01-22). Remaining packages should switch to
+ use 'dpkg --print-architecture'.