deb-changes(5)
NAME
deb-changes - Debian changes file format
SYNOPSIS
filename.changes
DESCRIPTION
Each Debian upload is composed of a .changes control file, which contains a number of fields. Each field begins with a tag, such as Source or Binary (case insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body of the field. Fields are delimited only by field tags. In other words, field text may be multiple lines in length, but the installation tools will generally join lines when processing the body of the field (except in case of the multiline fields Description, Changes, Files, Checksums-Sha1 and Checksums-Sha256, see below). The control data might be enclosed in an OpenPGP ASCII Armored signature, as specified in RFC4880.
FIELDS
Format: format-version (required)
The value of this field declares the format version of the file.
The syntax of the field value is a version number with a major
and minor component. Backward incompatible changes to the
format will bump the major version, and backward compatible
changes (such as field additions) will bump the minor version.
The current format version is 1.8.
Date: release-date (required)
The date the package was built or last edited. It must be in
the same format as the date in a deb-changelog(5) entry.
The value of this field is usually extracted from the
debian/changelog file.
Source: source-name [(source-version)] (required)
The name of the source package. If the source version differs
from the binary version, then the source-name will be followed
by a source-version in parenthesis. This can happen when the
upload is a binary-only non-maintainer upload.
Binary: binary-package-list (required)
This folded field is a space-separated list of binary packages
to upload.
Architecture: arch-list
Lists the architectures of the files currently being uploaded.
Common architectures are amd64, armel, i386, etc. Note that the
all value is meant for packages that are architecture
independent. If the source for the package is also being
uploaded, the special entry source is also present.
Architecture wildcards must never be present in the list.
Version: version-string (required)
Typically, this is the original package's version number in
whatever form the program's author uses. It may also include a
Debian revision number (for non-native packages). The exact
format and sorting algorithm are described in deb-version(5).
Distribution: distributions (required)
Lists one or more space-separated distributions where this
version should be installed when it is uploaded to the archive.
Urgency: urgency (recommended)
The urgency of the upload. The currently known values, in
increasing order of urgency, are: low, medium, high, critical
and emergency.
Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
Should be in the format "Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@example.org>", and
is typically the person who created the package, as opposed to
the author of the software that was packaged.
Changed-By: fullname-email
Should be in the format "Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@example.org>", and
is typically the person who prepared the package changes for
this release.
Description: (recommended)
binary-package-name - binary-package-summary
This multiline field contains a list of binary package names
followed by a space, a dash ('-') and their possibly truncated
short descriptions.
Closes: bug-number-list
A space-separated list of bug report numbers that have been
resolved with this upload. The distribution archive software
might use this field to automatically close the referred bug
numbers in the distribution bug tracking system.
Binary-Only: yes
This field denotes that the upload is a binary-only non-
maintainer build. It originates from the binary-only=yes
key/value from the changelog matadata entry.
Changes: (required)
changelog-entries
This multiline field contains the concatenated text of all
changelog entries that are part of the upload. To make this a
valid multiline field empty lines are replaced with a single
full stop ('.') and all lines are indented by one space
character. The exact content depends on the changelog format.
Files: (required)
md5sum size section priority filename
This multiline field contains a list of files with a md5sum,
size, section and priority for each one.
The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as
the field name followed by a colon) is always empty. The
content of the field is expressed as continuation lines, one
line per file. Each line consists of space-separated entries
describing the file: the md5sum, the file size, the file
section, the file priority, and the file name.
This field lists all files that make up the upload. The list of
files in this field must match the list of files in the other
related Checksums fields.
Checksums-Sha1: (required)
Checksums-Sha256: (required)
checksum size filename
These multiline fields contain a list of files with a checksum
and size for each one. These fields have the same syntax and
differ only in the checksum algorithm used: SHA-1 for
Checksums-Sha1 and SHA-256 for Checksums-Sha256.
The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as
the field name followed by a colon) is always empty. The
content of the field is expressed as continuation lines, one
line per file. Each line consists of space-separated entries
describing the file: the checksum, the file size, and the file
name.
These fields list all files that make up the upload. The list
of files in these fields must match the list of files in the
Files field and the other related Checksums fields.
BUGS
The Files field is inconsistent with the other Checksums fields. The Change-By and Maintainer fields have confusing names. The Distribution field contains information about what is commonly referred to as a suite.
SEE ALSO
deb-src-control(5), deb-version(5).
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