Chapter 5. Control files and their fields

28

Field names are not case sensitive, but it is usual to capitalize the field names using mixed case

as shown below.

Blank lines, or lines consisting only of spaces and tabs, are not allowed within field values or

between fields   that would mean a new paragraph.

5.2 Source package control files  

debian/control

The

debian/control

file contains the most vital (and version independent) information

about the source package and about the binary packages it creates.

The first paragraph of the control file contains information about the source package in general.

The subsequent sets each describe a binary package that the source tree builds.

The fields in the general paragraph (the first one, for the source package) are:

Source

(mandatory)

Maintainer

(mandatory)

Uploaders

Section

(recommended)

Priority

(recommended)

Build Depends

et al

Standards Version

(recommended)

The fields in the binary package paragraphs are:

Package

(mandatory)

Architecture

(mandatory)

Section

(recommended)

Priority

(recommended)

Essential

Depends

et al

Description

(mandatory)

The syntax and semantics of the fields are described below.

These fields are used by

dpkg gencontrol

to generate control files for binary packages (see

below), by

dpkg genchanges

to generate the

.changes

file to accompany the upload, and

by

dpkg source

when it creates the

.dsc

source control file as part of a source archive.

The fields here may contain variable references   their values will be substituted by

dpkg gencontrol

,

dpkg genchanges

or

dpkg source

when they generate output con 

trol files. See `Variable substitutions:

debian/substvars

' on page

26

for details.

5.3 Binary package control files  

DEBIAN/control

The

DEBIAN/control

file contains the most vital (and version dependent) information about

a binary package.

The fields in this file are: