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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | SOURCE PACKAGE FORMATS | DIAGNOSTICS | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | SECURITY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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dpkg-source(1) dpkg suite dpkg-source(1)
dpkg-source - Debian source package (.dsc) manipulation tool
dpkg-source [option...] command
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.
-x, --extract filename.dsc [output-directory]
Extract a source package (--extract. 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.17.14.
-b, --build directory [format-specific-parameters]
Build a source package. 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.
Support for long option since dpkg 1.17.14.
--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).
Supported since dpkg 1.15.5.
--before-build directory
Run the corresponding hook of the source package format. 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.8.
--after-build directory
Run the corresponding hook of the source package format. 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.8.
--commit [directory] ...
Record changes in the source tree unpacked in directory.
This command can take supplementary parameters depending on
the source format. It will error out for formats where this
operation doesn't mean anything.
Supported since dpkg 1.16.1.
-?, --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.
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. It does
override any format given in debian/source/format.
Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.
-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.
Supported 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. 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.
Support for short option since dpkg 1.14.8. Support for long
option since dpkg 1.15.5. Support for xz compression since
dpkg 1.15.5.
-zlevel, --compression-level=level
Compression level to use. 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.
Support for short option since dpkg 1.14.8. Support for long
option since dpkg 1.15.5.
-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. (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, 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.
Support for long option since dpkg 1.15.6.
--extend-diff-ignore=regex
The perl regular expression specified will extend the default
value used by --diff-ignore and its current value, if set. 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.6.
-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. 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.
Support for long option since dpkg 1.15.6.
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.
Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.
--no-check
Do not check signatures and checksums before unpacking
Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.
--no-overwrite-dir
Do not overwrite the extraction directory if it already
exists.
Supported since dpkg 1.18.8.
--no-vendor-certs
Do not use the vendor specific certificate keyrings.
Supported since dpkg 1.23.0.
--signer-certs=keyring
Use this keyring containing signer certificates during
signature verification of source packages.
The option may be repeated multiple times to add multiple
keyrings.
Supported since dpkg 1.23.0.
--require-valid-signature
Refuse to unpack the source package if it doesn't contain an
OpenPGP signature that can be verified either with the user
supplied --signer-certs keyrings, or one of the
vendor-specific keyrings, including any parent vendor keyrings
if relevant.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.0.
--require-strong-checksums
Refuse to unpack the source package if it does not contain any
strong checksums. Currently the only known checksum
considered strong is SHA-256.
Supported since dpkg 1.18.7.
--ignore-bad-version
Turns the bad source package version check into a non-fatal
warning. This option should only be necessary when extracting
ancient source packages with broken versions, just for
backwards compatibility.
Supported since dpkg 1.17.7.
Generic general options
--threads-max=threads
Sets the maximum number of threads allowed for compressors
that support multi-threaded operations.
Supported since dpkg 1.21.14.
-q Sets quiet mode to suppress warnings.
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.
Note: On some vendors, dpkg has been made to permit native sources
with non-native versions, making this incoherent and adding to the
confusion of the concept, where in addition this tends to be a
trap for accidental mistakes.
Support for upstream signatures during extraction since dpkg
1.18.5. Support for upstream signatures during building since
dpkg 1.19.0.
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. This option is not
allowed in debian/source/options but can be used in
debian/source/local-options.
Supported since since dpkg 1.15.8.
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.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.1.
Format: 2.0
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.
Support for extraction since dpkg 1.13.9. Support for building
since dpkg 1.14.8.
Format: 3.0 (native)
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).
Note: On some vendors, dpkg has been made to permit native sources
with non-native versions, making this incoherent and adding to the
confusion of the concept, where in addition this tends to be a
trap for accidental mistakes.
Supported since dpkg 1.14.17.
Format: 3.0 (quilt)
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-addon.tar.ext). addon 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-addon.tar.ext.asc).
Supported since dpkg 1.14.17. Support for upstream signatures
during extraction since dpkg 1.17.20. Support for upstream
signatures during building 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
addon 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. 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.5.4.
--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.
Supported 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. 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.5.4.
--create-empty-orig
Automatically create the main original tarball as empty if
it's missing and if there are supplementary original tarballs.
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.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.6.
--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. 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.
Support for long option --unapply-patches since dpkg 1.15.8.
Support for long option --no-unapply-patches since dpkg
1.16.5.
--abort-on-upstream-changes
The process fails if an automatic patch has been generated.
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.
Supported since dpkg 1.15.8.
--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
Supported since dpkg 1.15.1.
--skip-patches
Do not apply patches at the end of the extraction.
Supported 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.
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.
[1mcannot represent change to file
Changes to upstream sources are usually stored with patch files,
but not all changes can be represented with patches generated by
GNU diff: 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.
You can use «git format-patch» or «git diff --no-index dir.orig/
dir/» to generate such patches.
newly created empty file file will not be represented in diff
GNU diff patch files cannot represent creating an empty file.
Thus this change is not recorded in the source package and you are
warned about it.
You can use «git format-patch» or «git diff --no-index dir.orig/
dir/» to generate such patches.
executable mode perms of file will not be represented in diff
GNU 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.
You can use «git format-patch» or «git diff --no-index dir.orig/
dir/» to generate such patches.
special mode perms of file will not be represented in diff
GNU 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.
You can use «git format-patch» or «git diff --no-index dir.orig/
dir/» to generate such patches.
DPKG_COLORS
Sets the color mode. The currently accepted values are: auto
(default), always and never.
Supported since dpkg 1.18.5.
DPKG_NLS
If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native
Language Support, also known as internationalization (or i18n)
support. The accepted values are: 0 and 1 (default).
Supported since dpkg 1.19.0.
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.
Supported since dpkg 1.18.11.
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.
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).
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.
The point at which field overriding occurs compared to certain
standard output field settings is rather confused.
deb-src-control(5), deb-changelog(5), deb-substvars(5), dsc(5).
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 2026-08-03. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2026-08-01.) 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
1.23.7-216-gff7e9 2026-03-07 dpkg-source(1)
Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-buildpackage(1), deb-src-control(5), deb-substvars(5), dsc(5)
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