Chapter 5. Control files and their fields

30

Architecture

(mandatory)

Version

(mandatory)

Distribution

(mandatory)

Urgency

(recommended)

Maintainer

(mandatory)

Changed By

Description

(mandatory)

Closes

Changes

(mandatory)

Files

(mandatory)

5.6 List of fields

5.6.1

Source

This field identifies the source package name.

In a main source control information, a

.changes

or a

.dsc

file this may contain only the

name of the source package.

In the control file of a binary package it may be followed by a version number in parentheses

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.

This version number may be omitted (and is, by

dpkg gencontrol

) if it has the same value

as the

Version

field of the binary package in question. The field itself may be omitted from

a binary package control file when the source package has the same name and version as the

binary package.

5.6.2

Maintainer

The package maintainer's name and email address. The name should come first, then the email

address inside angle brackets

<>

(in RFC822 format).

If the maintainer's name contains a full stop then the whole field will not work directly as an

email address due to a misfeature in the syntax specified in RFC822; a program using this field

as an address must check for this and correct the problem if necessary (for example by putting

the name in round brackets and moving it to the end, and bringing the email address forward).

5.6.3

Uploaders

List of the names and email addresses of co maintaintainers of the package, if any. If the pack 

age has other maintainers beside the one named in the Maintainer field, they their names and

email addresses should be listed here. The format is the same as that of the Maintainer tag,

and multiple entries should be comma separated. This is an optional field.

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It is customary to leave a space after the package name if a version number is specified.