DEB(B)                        Debian                       DEB(B)



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  gener-
       ated  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(d).

FORMAT
       The  file is an ar archive with a magic number of !<arch>.

       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  num-
       ber  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 infor-
       mation.  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  direc-
       tory.

       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 under-
       score, `_'.

       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(d),  dpkg-deb(b), deb-control(l), Debian Packaging
       Manual.



Debian Project             January 2000                    DEB(B)