dpkg-source(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | SOURCE PACKAGE FORMATS | DIAGNOSTICS | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | SECURITY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

dpkg-source(1)                 dpkg suite                 dpkg-source(1)

NAME         top

       dpkg-source - Debian source package (.dsc) manipulation tool

SYNOPSIS         top

       dpkg-source [option...] command

DESCRIPTION         top

       dpkg-source packs and unpacks Debian source archives.

       None of these commands allow multiple options to be combined into
       one, and they do not allow the value for an option to be
       specified in a separate argument.

COMMANDS         top

       -x, --extract filename.dsc [output-directory]
           Extract a source package (--extract since dpkg 1.17.14).  One
           non-option argument must be supplied, the name of the Debian
           source control file (.dsc).  An optional second non-option
           argument may be supplied to specify the directory to extract
           the source package to, this must not exist. If no output
           directory is specified, the source package is extracted into
           a directory named source-version under the current working
           directory.

           dpkg-source will read the names of the other file(s) making
           up the source package from the control file; they are assumed
           to be in the same directory as the .dsc.

           The files in the extracted package will have their
           permissions and ownerships set to those which would have been
           expected if the files and directories had simply been created
           - directories and executable files will be 0777 and plain
           files will be 0666, both modified by the extractors' umask;
           if the parent directory is setgid then the extracted
           directories will be too, and all the files and directories
           will inherit its group ownership.

           If the source package uses a non-standard format (currently
           this means all formats except “1.0”), its name will be stored
           in debian/source/format so that the following builds of the
           source package use the same format by default.

       -b, --build directory [format-specific-parameters]
           Build a source package (--build since dpkg 1.17.14).  The
           first non-option argument is taken as the name of the
           directory containing the debianized source tree (i.e. with a
           debian sub-directory and maybe changes to the original
           files).  Depending on the source package format used to build
           the package, additional parameters might be accepted.

           dpkg-source will build the source package with the first
           format found in this ordered list: the format indicated with
           the --format command line option, the format indicated in
           debian/source/format, “1.0”.  The fallback to “1.0” is
           deprecated and will be removed at some point in the future,
           you should always document the desired source format in
           debian/source/format. See section "SOURCE PACKAGE FORMATS"
           for an extensive description of the various source package
           formats.

       --print-format directory
           Print the source format that would be used to build the
           source package if dpkg-source --build directory was called
           (in the same conditions and with the same parameters; since
           dpkg 1.15.5).

       --before-build directory
           Run the corresponding hook of the source package format
           (since dpkg 1.15.8).  This hook is called before any build of
           the package (dpkg-buildpackage calls it very early even
           before debian/rules clean). This command is idempotent and
           can be called multiple times. Not all source formats
           implement something in this hook, and those that do usually
           prepare the source tree for the build for example by ensuring
           that the Debian patches are applied.

       --after-build directory
           Run the corresponding hook of the source package format
           (since dpkg 1.15.8).  This hook is called after any build of
           the package (dpkg-buildpackage calls it last). This command
           is idempotent and can be called multiple times. Not all
           source formats implement something in this hook, and those
           that do usually use it to undo what --before-build has done.

       --commit [directory] ...
           Record changes in the source tree unpacked in directory
           (since dpkg 1.16.1).  This command can take supplementary
           parameters depending on the source format.  It will error out
           for formats where this operation doesn't mean anything.

       -?, --help
           Show the usage message and exit.  The format specific build
           and extract options can be shown by using the --format
           option.

       --version
           Show the version and exit.

OPTIONS         top

   Generic build options
       -ccontrol-file
           Specifies the main source control file to read information
           from. The default is debian/control.  If given with relative
           pathname this is interpreted starting at the source tree's
           top level directory.

       -lchangelog-file
           Specifies the changelog file to read information from. The
           default is debian/changelog.  If given with relative pathname
           this is interpreted starting at the source tree's top level
           directory.

       -Fchangelog-format
           Specifies the format of the changelog. See
           dpkg-parsechangelog(1) for information about alternative
           formats.

       --format=value
           Use the given format for building the source package (since
           dpkg 1.14.17).  It does override any format given in
           debian/source/format.

       -Vname=value
           Set an output substitution variable.  See deb-substvars(5)
           for a discussion of output substitution.

       -Tsubstvars-file
           Read substitution variables in substvars-file; the default is
           to not read any file. This option can be used multiple times
           to read substitution variables from multiple files (since
           dpkg 1.15.6).

       -Dfield=value
           Override or add an output control file field.

       -Ufield
           Remove an output control file field.

       -Zcompression, --compression=compression
           Specify the compression to use for created tarballs and diff
           files (--compression since dpkg 1.15.5).  Note that this
           option will not cause existing tarballs to be recompressed,
           it only affects new files. Supported values are: gzip, bzip2,
           lzma and xz.  The default is xz for formats 2.0 and newer,
           and gzip for format 1.0. xz is only supported since dpkg
           1.15.5.

       -zlevel, --compression-level=level
           Compression level to use (--compression-level since dpkg
           1.15.5).  As with -Z it only affects newly created files.
           Supported values are: 1 to 9, best, and fast.  The default is
           9 for gzip and bzip2, 6 for xz and lzma.

       -i[regex], --diff-ignore[=regex]
           You may specify a perl regular expression to match files you
           want filtered out of the list of files for the diff
           (--diff-ignore since dpkg 1.15.6).  (This list is generated
           by a find command.) (If the source package is being built as
           a version 3 source package using a VCS, this can be used to
           ignore uncommitted changes on specific files. Using -i.* will
           ignore all of them.)

           The -i option by itself enables this setting with a default
           regex (preserving any modification to the default regex done
           by a previous use of --extend-diff-ignore) that will filter
           out control files and directories of the most common revision
           control systems, backup and swap files and Libtool build
           output directories. There can only be one active regex, of
           multiple -i options only the last one will take effect.

           This is very helpful in cutting out extraneous files that get
           included in the diff, for example if you maintain your source
           in a revision control system and want to use a checkout to
           build a source package without including the additional files
           and directories that it will usually contain (e.g. CVS/,
           .cvsignore, .svn/). The default regex is already very
           exhaustive, but if you need to replace it, please note that
           by default it can match any part of a path, so if you want to
           match the begin of a filename or only full filenames, you
           will need to provide the necessary anchors (e.g. ‘(^|/)’,
           ‘($|/)’) yourself.

       --extend-diff-ignore=regex
           The perl regular expression specified will extend the default
           value used by --diff-ignore and its current value, if set
           (since dpkg 1.15.6).  It does this by concatenating “|regex”
           to the existing value.  This option is convenient to use in
           debian/source/options to exclude some auto-generated files
           from the automatic patch generation.

       -I[file-pattern], --tar-ignore[=file-pattern]
           If this option is specified, the pattern will be passed to
           tar(1)'s --exclude option when it is called to generate a
           .orig.tar or .tar file (--tar-ignore since dpkg 1.15.6).  For
           example, -ICVS will make tar skip over CVS directories when
           generating a .tar.gz file. The option may be repeated
           multiple times to list multiple patterns to exclude.

           -I by itself adds default --exclude options that will filter
           out control files and directories of the most common revision
           control systems, backup and swap files and Libtool build
           output directories.

       Note: While they have similar purposes, -i and -I have very
       different syntax and semantics. -i can only be specified once and
       takes a perl compatible regular expression which is matched
       against the full relative path of each file. -I can specified
       multiple times and takes a filename pattern with shell wildcards.
       The pattern is applied to the full relative path but also to each
       part of the path individually. The exact semantic of tar's
       --exclude option is somewhat complicated, see
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html#wildcards> for
       a full documentation.

       The default regex and patterns for both options can be seen in
       the output of the --help command.

   Generic extract options
       --no-copy
           Do not copy original tarballs near the extracted source
           package (since dpkg 1.14.17).

       --no-check
           Do not check signatures and checksums before unpacking (since
           dpkg 1.14.17).

       --no-overwrite-dir
           Do not overwrite the extraction directory if it already
           exists (since dpkg 1.18.8).

       --require-valid-signature
           Refuse to unpack the source package if it doesn't contain an
           OpenPGP signature that can be verified (since dpkg 1.15.0)
           either with the user's trustedkeys.gpg keyring, one of the
           vendor-specific keyrings, or one of the official Debian
           keyrings (/usr/share/keyrings/debian-keyring.gpg,
           /usr/share/keyrings/debian-nonupload.gpg and
           /usr/share/keyrings/debian-maintainers.gpg).

       --require-strong-checksums
           Refuse to unpack the source package if it does not contain
           any strong checksums (since dpkg 1.18.7).  Currently the only
           known checksum considered strong is SHA-256.

       --ignore-bad-version
           Turns the bad source package version check into a non-fatal
           warning (since dpkg 1.17.7).  This option should only be
           necessary when extracting ancient source packages with broken
           versions, just for backwards compatibility.

   Generic general options
       --threads-max=threads
           Sets the maximum number of threads allowed for compressors
           that support multi-threaded operations (since dpkg 1.21.14).

       -q  Sets quiet mode to suppress warnings.

SOURCE PACKAGE FORMATS         top

       If you don't know what source format to use, you should probably
       pick either “3.0 (quilt)” or “3.0 (native)”.  See
       <https://wiki.debian.org/Projects/DebSrc3.0> for information on
       the deployment of those formats within Debian.

   Format: 1.0
       A source package in this format consists either of a .orig.tar.gz
       associated to a .diff.gz or a single .tar.gz (in that case the
       package is said to be native).  Optionally the original tarball
       might be accompanied by a detached upstream signature
       .orig.tar.gz.asc, extraction supported since dpkg 1.18.5.

       Extracting

       Extracting a native package is a simple extraction of the single
       tarball in the target directory. Extracting a non-native package
       is done by first unpacking the .orig.tar.gz and then applying the
       patch contained in the .diff.gz file. The timestamp of all
       patched files is reset to the extraction time of the source
       package (this avoids timestamp skews leading to problems when
       autogenerated files are patched). The diff can create new files
       (the whole debian directory is created that way) but cannot
       remove files (empty files will be left over) and cannot create or
       change symlinks.

       Building

       Building a native package is just creating a single tarball with
       the source directory. Building a non-native package involves
       extracting the original tarball in a separate “.orig” directory
       and regenerating the .diff.gz by comparing the source package
       directory with the .orig directory.

       Build options (with --build):

       If a second non-option argument is supplied it should be the name
       of the original source directory or tarfile or the empty string
       if the package is a Debian-specific one and so has no
       debianization diffs. If no second argument is supplied then dpkg-
       source will look for the original source tarfile
       package_upstream-version.orig.tar.gz or the original source
       directory directory.orig depending on the -sX arguments.

       -sa, -sp, -sk, -su and -sr will not overwrite existing tarfiles
       or directories. If this is desired then -sA, -sP, -sK, -sU and
       -sR should be used instead.

       -sk Specifies to expect the original source as a tarfile, by
           default package_upstream-version.orig.tar.extension.  It will
           leave this original source in place as a tarfile, or copy it
           to the current directory if it isn't already there. The
           tarball will be unpacked into directory.orig for the
           generation of the diff.

       -sp Like -sk but will remove the directory again afterwards.

       -su Specifies that the original source is expected as a
           directory, by default package-upstream-version.orig and dpkg-
           source will create a new original source archive from it.

       -sr Like -su but will remove that directory after it has been
           used.

       -ss Specifies that the original source is available both as a
           directory and as a tarfile. dpkg-source will use the
           directory to create the diff, but the tarfile to create the
           .dsc.  This option must be used with care - if the directory
           and tarfile do not match a bad source archive will be
           generated.

       -sn Specifies to not look for any original source, and to not
           generate a diff.  The second argument, if supplied, must be
           the empty string. This is used for Debian-specific packages
           which do not have a separate upstream source and therefore
           have no debianization diffs.

       -sa or -sA
           Specifies to look for the original source archive as a
           tarfile or as a directory - the second argument, if any, may
           be either, or the empty string (this is equivalent to using
           -sn).  If a tarfile is found it will unpack it to create the
           diff and remove it afterwards (this is equivalent to -sp); if
           a directory is found it will pack it to create the original
           source and remove it afterwards (this is equivalent to -sr);
           if neither is found it will assume that the package has no
           debianization diffs, only a straightforward source archive
           (this is equivalent to -sn).  If both are found then dpkg-
           source will ignore the directory, overwriting it, if -sA was
           specified (this is equivalent to -sP) or raise an error if
           -sa was specified.  -sa is the default.

       --abort-on-upstream-changes
           The process fails if the generated diff contains changes to
           files outside of the debian sub-directory (since dpkg
           1.15.8).  This option is not allowed in debian/source/options
           but can be used in debian/source/local-options.

       Extract options (with --extract):

       In all cases any existing original source tree will be removed.

       -sp Used when extracting then the original source (if any) will
           be left as a tarfile. If it is not already located in the
           current directory or if an existing but different file is
           there it will be copied there.  (This is the default).

       -su Unpacks the original source tree.

       -sn Ensures that the original source is neither copied to the
           current directory nor unpacked. Any original source tree that
           was in the current directory is still removed.

       All the -sX options are mutually exclusive. If you specify more
       than one only the last one will be used.

       --skip-debianization
           Skips application of the debian diff on top of the upstream
           sources (since dpkg 1.15.1).

   Format: 2.0
       Extraction supported since dpkg 1.13.9, building supported since
       dpkg 1.14.8.  Also known as wig&pen. This format is not
       recommended for wide-spread usage, the format “3.0 (quilt)”
       replaces it.  Wig&pen was the first specification of a new-
       generation source package format.

       The behavior of this format is the same as the “3.0 (quilt)”
       format except that it doesn't use an explicit list of patches.
       All files in debian/patches/ matching the perl regular expression
       [\w-]+ must be valid patches: they are applied at extraction
       time.

       When building a new source package, any change to the upstream
       source is stored in a patch named zz_debian-diff-auto.

   Format: 3.0 (native)
       Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.  This format is an extension of the
       native package format as defined in the 1.0 format. It supports
       all compression methods and will ignore by default any VCS
       specific files and directories as well as many temporary files
       (see default value associated to -I option in the --help output).

   Format: 3.0 (quilt)
       Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.  A source package in this format
       contains at least an original tarball (.orig.tar.ext where ext
       can be gz, bz2, lzma and xz) and a debian tarball
       (.debian.tar.ext). It can also contain additional original
       tarballs (.orig-component.tar.ext).  component can only contain
       alphanumeric (‘a-zA-Z0-9’) characters and hyphens (‘-’).
       Optionally each original tarball can be accompanied by a detached
       upstream signature (.orig.tar.ext.asc and
       .orig-component.tar.ext.asc), extraction supported since dpkg
       1.17.20, building supported since dpkg 1.18.5.

       Extracting

       The main original tarball is extracted first, then all additional
       original tarballs are extracted in subdirectories named after the
       component part of their filename (any pre-existing directory is
       replaced). The debian tarball is extracted on top of the source
       directory after prior removal of any pre-existing debian
       directory. Note that the debian tarball must contain a debian
       sub-directory but it can also contain binary files outside of
       that directory (see --include-binaries option).

       All patches listed in debian/patches/vendor.series or
       debian/patches/series are then applied, where vendor will be the
       lowercase name of the current vendor, or debian if there is no
       vendor defined.  If the former file is used and the latter one
       doesn't exist (or is a symlink), then the latter is replaced with
       a symlink to the former.  This is meant to simplify usage of
       quilt to manage the set of patches.  Vendor-specific series files
       are intended to make it possible to serialize multiple
       development branches based on the vendor, in a declarative way,
       in preference to open-coding this handling in debian/rules.  This
       is particularly useful when the source would need to be patched
       conditionally because the affected files do not have built-in
       conditional occlusion support.  Note however that while dpkg-
       source parses correctly series files with explicit options used
       for patch application (stored on each line after the patch
       filename and one or more spaces), it does ignore those options
       and always expects patches that can be applied with the -p1
       option of patch. It will thus emit a warning when it encounters
       such options, and the build is likely to fail.

       Note that lintian(1) will emit unconditional warnings when using
       vendor series due to a controversial Debian specific ruling,
       which should not affect any external usage; to silence these, the
       dpkg lintian profile can be used by passing «--profile dpkg» to
       lintian(1).

       The timestamp of all patched files is reset to the extraction
       time of the source package (this avoids timestamp skews leading
       to problems when autogenerated files are patched).

       Contrary to quilt's default behavior, patches are expected to
       apply without any fuzz. When that is not the case, you should
       refresh such patches with quilt, or dpkg-source will error out
       while trying to apply them.

       Similarly to quilt's default behavior, the patches can remove
       files too.

       The file .pc/applied-patches is created if some patches have been
       applied during the extraction.

       Building

       All original tarballs found in the current directory are
       extracted in a temporary directory by following the same logic as
       for the unpack, the debian directory is copied over in the
       temporary directory, and all patches except the automatic patch
       (debian-changes-version or debian-changes, depending on
       --single-debian-patch) are applied. The temporary directory is
       compared to the source package directory. When the diff is non-
       empty, the build fails unless --single-debian-patch or
       --auto-commit has been used, in which case the diff is stored in
       the automatic patch.  If the automatic patch is created/deleted,
       it's added/removed from the series file and from the quilt
       metadata.

       Any change on a binary file is not representable in a diff and
       will thus lead to a failure unless the maintainer deliberately
       decided to include that modified binary file in the debian
       tarball (by listing it in debian/source/include-binaries). The
       build will also fail if it finds binary files in the debian sub-
       directory unless they have been allowed through
       debian/source/include-binaries.

       The updated debian directory and the list of modified binaries is
       then used to generate the debian tarball.

       The automatically generated diff doesn't include changes on VCS
       specific files as well as many temporary files (see default value
       associated to -i option in the --help output). In particular, the
       .pc directory used by quilt is ignored during generation of the
       automatic patch.

       Note: dpkg-source --before-build (and --build) will ensure that
       all patches listed in the series file are applied so that a
       package build always has all patches applied. It does this by
       finding unapplied patches (they are listed in the series file but
       not in .pc/applied-patches), and if the first patch in that set
       can be applied without errors, it will apply them all. The option
       --no-preparation can be used to disable this behavior.

       Recording changes

       --commit [directory] [patch-name] [patch-file]
           Generates a patch corresponding to the local changes that are
           not managed by the quilt patch system and integrates it in
           the patch system under the name patch-name. If the name is
           missing, it will be asked interactively. If patch-file is
           given, it is used as the patch corresponding to the local
           changes to integrate. Once integrated, an editor (the first
           one found from sensible-editor, $VISUAL, $EDITOR, vi) is
           launched so that you can edit the meta-information in the
           patch header.

           Passing patch-file is mainly useful after a build failure
           that pre-generated this file, and on this ground the given
           file is removed after integration. Note also that the changes
           contained in the patch file must already be applied on the
           tree and that the files modified by the patch must not have
           supplementary unrecorded changes.

           If the patch generation detects modified binary files, they
           will be automatically added to debian/source/include-binaries
           so that they end up in the debian tarball (exactly like dpkg-
           source --include-binaries --build would do).

       Build options

       --allow-version-of-quilt-db=version
           Allow dpkg-source to build the source package if the version
           of the quilt metadata is the one specified, even if dpkg-
           source doesn't know about it (since dpkg 1.15.5.4).
           Effectively this says that the given version of the quilt
           metadata is compatible with the version 2 that dpkg-source
           currently supports. The version of the quilt metadata is
           stored in .pc/.version.

       --include-removal
           Do not ignore removed files and include them in the
           automatically generated patch.

       --include-timestamp
           Include timestamp in the automatically generated patch.

       --include-binaries
           Add all modified binaries in the debian tarball. Also add
           them to debian/source/include-binaries: they will be added by
           default in subsequent builds and this option is thus no more
           needed.

       --no-preparation
           Do not try to prepare the build tree by applying patches
           which are apparently unapplied (since dpkg 1.14.18).

       --single-debian-patch
           Use debian/patches/debian-changes instead of
           debian/patches/debian-changes-version for the name of the
           automatic patch generated during build (since dpkg 1.15.5.4).
           This option is particularly useful when the package is
           maintained in a VCS and a patch set can't reliably be
           generated. Instead the current diff with upstream should be
           stored in a single patch. The option would be put in
           debian/source/local-options and would be accompanied by a
           debian/source/local-patch-header file explaining how the
           Debian changes can be best reviewed, for example in the VCS
           that is used.

       --create-empty-orig
           Automatically create the main original tarball as empty if
           it's missing and if there are supplementary original tarballs
           (since dpkg 1.15.6).  This option is meant to be used when
           the source package is just a bundle of multiple upstream
           software and where there's no “main” software.

       --no-unapply-patches, --unapply-patches
           By default, dpkg-source will automatically unapply the
           patches in the --after-build hook if it did apply them during
           --before-build (--unapply-patches since dpkg 1.15.8,
           --no-unapply-patches since dpkg 1.16.5).  Those options allow
           you to forcefully disable or enable the patch unapplication
           process. Those options are only allowed in
           debian/source/local-options so that all generated source
           packages have the same behavior by default.

       --abort-on-upstream-changes
           The process fails if an automatic patch has been generated
           (since dpkg 1.15.8).  This option can be used to ensure that
           all changes were properly recorded in separate quilt patches
           prior to the source package build. This option is not allowed
           in debian/source/options but can be used in
           debian/source/local-options.

       --auto-commit
           The process doesn't fail if an automatic patch has been
           generated, instead it's immediately recorded in the quilt
           series.

       Extract options

       --skip-debianization
           Skips extraction of the debian tarball on top of the upstream
           sources (since dpkg 1.15.1).

       --skip-patches
           Do not apply patches at the end of the extraction (since dpkg
           1.14.18).

   Format: 3.0 (custom)
       Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.  This format is special.  It
       doesn't represent a real source package format but can be used to
       create source packages with arbitrary files.

       Build options

       All non-option arguments are taken as files to integrate in the
       generated source package. They must exist and are preferably in
       the current directory. At least one file must be given.

       --target-format=value
           Required. Defines the real format of the generated source
           package.  The generated .dsc file will contain this value in
           its Format field and not “3.0 (custom)”.

   Format: 3.0 (git)
       Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.  This format is experimental.

       A source package in this format consists of a single bundle of a
       git repository .git to hold the source of a package.  There may
       also be a .gitshallow file listing revisions for a shallow git
       clone.

       Extracting

       The bundle is cloned as a git repository to the target directory.
       If there is a gitshallow file, it is installed as .git/shallow
       inside the cloned git repository.

       Note that by default the new repository will have the same branch
       checked out that was checked out in the original source.
       (Typically “main”, but it could be anything.)  Any other branches
       will be available under remotes/origin/.

       Building

       Before going any further, some checks are done to ensure that we
       don't have any non-ignored uncommitted changes.

       git-bundle(1) is used to generate a bundle of the git repository.
       By default, all branches and tags in the repository are included
       in the bundle.

       Build options

       --git-ref=ref
           Allows specifying a git ref to include in the git bundle. Use
           disables the default behavior of including all branches and
           tags. May be specified multiple times. The ref can be the
           name of a branch or tag to include. It may also be any
           parameter that can be passed to git-rev-list(1). For example,
           to include only the main branch, use --git-ref=main. To
           include all tags and branches, except for the private branch,
           use --git-ref=--all --git-ref=^private

       --git-depth=number
           Creates a shallow clone with a history truncated to the
           specified number of revisions.

   Format: 3.0 (bzr)
       Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.  This format is experimental.  It
       generates a single tarball containing the bzr repository.

       Extracting

       The tarball is unpacked and then bzr is used to checkout the
       current branch.

       Building

       Before going any further, some checks are done to ensure that we
       don't have any non-ignored uncommitted changes.

       Then the VCS specific part of the source directory is copied over
       to a temporary directory. Before this temporary directory is
       packed in a tarball, various cleanup are done to save space.

DIAGNOSTICS         top

   no source format specified in debian/source/format
       The file debian/source/format should always exist and indicate
       the desired source format. For backwards compatibility, format
       “1.0” is assumed when the file doesn't exist but you should not
       rely on this: at some point in the future dpkg-source will be
       modified to fail when that file doesn't exist.

       The rationale is that format “1.0” is no longer the recommended
       format, you should usually pick one of the newer formats (“3.0
       (quilt)”, “3.0 (native)”) but dpkg-source will not do this
       automatically for you.  If you want to continue using the old
       format, you should be explicit about it and put “1.0” in
       debian/source/format.

   the diff modifies the following upstream files
       When using source format “1.0” it is usually a bad idea to modify
       upstream files directly as the changes end up hidden and mostly
       undocumented in the .diff.gz file. Instead you should store your
       changes as patches in the debian directory and apply them at
       build-time. To avoid this complexity you can also use the format
       “3.0 (quilt)” that offers this natively.

   cannot represent change to file
       Changes to upstream sources are usually stored with patch files,
       but not all changes can be represented with patches: they can
       only alter the content of plain text files. If you try replacing
       a file with something of a different type (for example replacing
       a plain file with a symlink or a directory), you will get this
       error message.

   newly created empty file file will not be represented in diff
       Empty files can't be created with patch files. Thus this change
       is not recorded in the source package and you are warned about
       it.

   executable mode perms of file will not be represented in diff
       Patch files do not record permissions of files and thus
       executable permissions are not stored in the source package. This
       warning reminds you of that fact.

   special mode perms of file will not be represented in diff
       Patch files do not record permissions of files and thus modified
       permissions are not stored in the source package. This warning
       reminds you of that fact.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       DPKG_COLORS
           Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5).  The currently
           accepted values are: auto (default), always and never.

       DPKG_NLS
           If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native
           Language Support, also known as internationalization (or
           i18n) support (since dpkg 1.19.0).  The accepted values are:
           0 and 1 (default).

       SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
           If set, it will be used as the timestamp (as seconds since
           the epoch) to clamp the mtime in the tar(5) file entries.

       VISUAL
       EDITOR
           Used by the “2.0” and “3.0 (quilt)” source format modules.

       GIT_DIR
       GIT_INDEX_FILE
       GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY
       GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES
       GIT_WORK_TREE
           Used by the “3.0 (git)” source format modules.

FILES         top

   debian/source/format
       This file contains on a single line the format that should be
       used to build the source package (possible formats are described
       above). No leading or trailing spaces are allowed.

   debian/source/include-binaries
       This file contains a list of pathnames of binary files (one per
       line) relative to the source root directory that should be
       included in the debian tarball.  Leading and trailing spaces are
       stripped.  Lines starting with ‘#’ are comments and are skipped.
       Empty lines are ignored.

   debian/source/options
       This file contains a list of long options that should be
       automatically prepended to the set of command line options of a
       dpkg-source --build or dpkg-source --print-format call. Options
       like --compression and --compression-level are well suited for
       this file.

       Each option should be put on a separate line. Empty lines and
       lines starting with ‘#’ are ignored.  The leading ‘--’ should be
       stripped and short options are not allowed.  Optional spaces are
       allowed around the ‘=’ symbol and optional quotes are allowed
       around the value.  Here's an example of such a file:

        # let dpkg-source create a debian.tar.bz2 with maximal compression
        compression = "bzip2"
        compression-level = 9
        # use debian/patches/debian-changes as automatic patch
        single-debian-patch
        # ignore changes on config.{sub,guess}
        extend-diff-ignore = "(^|/)(config.sub|config.guess)$"

       Note: format options are not accepted in this file, you should
       use debian/source/format instead.

   debian/source/local-options
       Exactly like debian/source/options except that the file is not
       included in the generated source package. It can be useful to
       store a preference tied to the maintainer or to the VCS
       repository where the source package is maintained.

   debian/source/local-patch-header
   debian/source/patch-header
       Free form text that is put on top of the automatic patch
       generated in formats “2.0” or “3.0 (quilt)”. local-patch-header
       is not included in the generated source package while patch-
       header is.

   debian/patches/vendor.series
   debian/patches/series
       This file lists all patches that have to be applied (in the given
       order) on top of the upstream source package. Leading and
       trailing spaces are stripped.  The vendor will be the lowercase
       name of the current vendor, or debian if there is no vendor
       defined.  If the vendor-specific series file does not exist, the
       vendor-less series file will be used.  Lines starting with ‘#’
       are comments and are skipped.  Empty lines are ignored.
       Remaining lines start with a patch filename (relative to the
       debian/patches/ directory) up to the first space character or the
       end of line. Optional quilt options can follow up to the end of
       line or the first ‘#’ preceded by one or more spaces (which marks
       the start of a comment up to the end of line).

SECURITY         top

       Examining untrusted source packages or extracting them into
       staging directories should be considered a security boundary, and
       any breakage of that boundary stemming from these operations
       should be considered a security vulnerability.  But handling
       untrusted source packages should not be done lightly, as the
       surface area includes any compression command supported, commands
       to handle specific data formats (such as tar(1) or patch(1)) in
       addition to the source package formats and control files
       themselves.  Performing these operations over untrusted data as
       root is strongly discouraged.

       Building source packages should only be performed over trusted
       data.

BUGS         top

       The point at which field overriding occurs compared to certain
       standard output field settings is rather confused.

SEE ALSO         top

       deb-src-control(5), deb-changelog(5), deb-substvars(5), dsc(5).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨git
       clone https://git.dpkg.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2023-12-18.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

1.22.0-52-g1af0                2023-08-30                 dpkg-source(1)

Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-buildpackage(1)deb-src-control(5)deb-substvars(5)dsc(5)