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Appendix C

Source packages (from old Packaging

Manual)

The Debian binary packages in the distribution are generated from Debian sources, which are

in a special format to assist the easy and automatic building of binaries.

C.1 Tools for processing source packages

Various tools are provided for manipulating source packages; they pack and unpack sources

and help build of binary packages and help manage the distribution of new versions.

They are introduced and typical uses described here; see

dpkg source(1)

for full documen 

tation about their arguments and operation.

For examples of how to construct a Debian source package, and how to use those utilities that

are used by Debian source packages, please see the

hello

example package.

C.1.1

dpkg source

  packs and unpacks Debian source packages

This program is frequently used by hand, and is also called from package independent auto 

mated building scripts such as

dpkg buildpackage

.

To unpack a package it is typically invoked with

dpkg source  x

.../path/to/filename

.dsc

with the

filename

.tar.gz

and

filename

.diff.gz

(if applicable) in the same directory. It

unpacks into

package

version

, and if applicable

package

version

.orig

, in the current

directory.

To create a packed source archive it is typically invoked: