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DEB
!!!DEB
NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
FORMAT
SEE ALSO
----
!!NAME


deb - Debian binary package format
!!SYNOPSIS


''filename''__.deb__
!!DESCRIPTION


The __.deb__ format is the Debian binary package file
format. It is understood by dpkg 0.93.76 and later, and is
generated by default by all versions of dpkg since 1.2.0 and
all i386/ELF versions since 1.1.1elf.


The format described here is used since Debian 0.93; details
of the old format are described in
deb-old(5).
!!FORMAT


The file is an __ar__ archive with a magic number of
__!__.


The first member is named __debian-binary__ and contains
a series of lines, separated by newlines. Currently only one
line is present, the format version number, __2.0__ at
the time this manual page was written. Programs which read
new-format archives should be prepared for the minor number
to be increased and new lines to be present, and should
ignore these if this is the case.


If the major number has changed, an incompatible change has
been made and the program should stop. If it has not, then
the program should be able to safely continue, unless it
encounters an unexpected member in the archive (except at
the end), as described below.


The second required member is named __control.tar.gz .__
It is a gzipped tar archive containing the package control
information, as a series of plain files, of which the file
__control__ is mandatory and contains the core control
information. Please see the ''Debian Packaging Manual,
section 2.2'' for details of these files. The control
tarball may optionally contain an entry for `__.__', the
current directory.


The third, last required member is named __data.tar.gz
.__ It contains the filesystem archive as a gzipped tar
archive.


These members must occur in this exact order. Current
implementations should ignore any additional members after
__data.tar.gz__. Further members may be defined in the
future, and (if possible) will be placed after these three.
Any additional members that may need to be inserted before
__data.tar.gz__ and which should be safely ignored by
older programs, will have names starting with an underscore,
`_____'.


Those new members which won't be able to be safely ignored
will be inserted before __data.tar.gz__ with names
starting with something other than underscores, or will
(more likely) cause the major version number to be
increased.
!!SEE ALSO


deb-old(5), __dpkg-deb__(1),
deb-control(5), ''Debian Packaging
Manual''.
----

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Last edited on Monday, June 3, 2002 6:55:55 pm by "perry"

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