1deb-changes(5)                    dpkg suite                    deb-changes(5)
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NAME

6       deb-changes - Debian changes file format
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SYNOPSIS

9       filename.changes
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DESCRIPTION

12       Each Debian upload is composed of a .changes control file, which
13       contains a number of fields in deb822(5) format.
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15       Each field begins with a tag, such as Source or Binary (case
16       insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body of the field (case
17       sensitive unless stated otherwise).  Fields are delimited only by field
18       tags.  In other words, field text may be multiple lines in length, but
19       the installation tools will generally join lines when processing the
20       body of the field (except in case of the multiline fields Description,
21       Changes, Files, Checksums-Sha1 and Checksums-Sha256, see below).
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23       The control data might be enclosed in an OpenPGP ASCII Armored
24       signature, as specified in RFC4880.
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FIELDS

27       Format: format-version (required)
28           The value of this field declares the format version of the file.
29           The syntax of the field value is a version number with a major and
30           minor component.  Backward incompatible changes to the format will
31           bump the major version, and backward compatible changes (such as
32           field additions) will bump the minor version.  The current format
33           version is 1.8.
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35       Date: release-date (required)
36           The date the package was built or last edited.  It must be in the
37           same format as the date in a deb-changelog(5) entry.
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39           The value of this field is usually extracted from the
40           debian/changelog file.
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42       Source: source-name [(source-version)] (required)
43           The name of the source package.  If the source version differs from
44           the binary version, then the source-name will be followed by a
45           source-version in parenthesis.  This can happen when the upload is
46           a binary-only non-maintainer upload.
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48       Binary: binary-package-list (required in context)
49           This folded field is a space-separated list of binary packages to
50           upload.  If the upload is source-only, then the field is omitted
51           (since dpkg 1.19.3).
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53       Architecture: arch-list
54           Lists the architectures of the files currently being uploaded.
55           Common architectures are amd64, armel, i386, etc.  Note that the
56           all value is meant for packages that are architecture independent.
57           If the source for the package is also being uploaded, the special
58           entry source is also present.  Architecture wildcards must never be
59           present in the list.
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61       Version: version-string (required)
62           Typically, this is the original package's version number in
63           whatever form the program's author uses.  It may also include a
64           Debian revision number (for non-native packages).  The exact format
65           and sorting algorithm are described in deb-version(7).
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67       Distribution: distributions (required)
68           Lists one or more space-separated distributions where this version
69           should be installed when it is uploaded to the archive.
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71       Urgency: urgency (recommended)
72           The urgency of the upload.  The currently known values, in
73           increasing order of urgency, are: low, medium, high, critical and
74           emergency.
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76       Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
77           Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@example.org>”, and is
78           typically the person who created the package, as opposed to the
79           author of the software that was packaged.
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81       Changed-By: fullname-email
82           Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@example.org>”, and is
83           typically the person who prepared the package changes for this
84           release.
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86       Description: (recommended)
87        binary-package-name - binary-package-summary
88           This multiline field contains a list of binary package names
89           followed by a space, a dash (‘-’) and their possibly truncated
90           short descriptions.  If the upload is source-only, then the field
91           is omitted (since dpkg 1.19.3).
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93       Closes: bug-number-list
94           A space-separated list of bug report numbers for bug reports that
95           have been resolved with this upload.  The distribution archive
96           software might use this field to automatically close the referred
97           bug numbers in the distribution bug tracking system.
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99       Binary-Only: yes
100           This field denotes that the upload is a binary-only non-maintainer
101           build.  It originates from the binary-only=yes key/value from the
102           changelog metadata entry.
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104       Built-For-Profiles: profile-list
105           This field specifies a whitespace separated list of build profiles
106           that this upload was built with.
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108       Changes: (required)
109        changelog-entries
110           This multiline field contains the concatenated text of all
111           changelog entries that are part of the upload.  To make this a
112           valid multiline field empty lines are replaced with a single full
113           stop (‘.’) and all lines are indented by one space character.  The
114           exact content depends on the changelog format.
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116       Files: (required)
117        md5sum size section priority filename
118           This multiline field contains a list of files with an md5sum, size,
119           section and priority for each one.
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121           The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as the
122           field name followed by a colon) is always empty.  The content of
123           the field is expressed as continuation lines, one line per file.
124           Each line consists of space-separated entries describing the file:
125           the md5sum, the file size, the file section, the file priority, and
126           the file name.
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128           This field lists all files that make up the upload.  The list of
129           files in this field must match the list of files in the other
130           related Checksums fields.
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132       Checksums-Sha1: (required)
133       Checksums-Sha256: (required)
134        checksum size filename
135           These multiline fields contain a list of files with a checksum and
136           size for each one.  These fields have the same syntax and differ
137           only in the checksum algorithm used: SHA-1 for Checksums-Sha1 and
138           SHA-256 for Checksums-Sha256.
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140           The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as the
141           field name followed by a colon) is always empty.  The content of
142           the field is expressed as continuation lines, one line per file.
143           Each line consists of space-separated entries describing the file:
144           the checksum, the file size, and the file name.
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146           These fields list all files that make up the upload.  The list of
147           files in these fields must match the list of files in the Files
148           field and the other related Checksums fields.
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BUGS

151       The Files field is inconsistent with the other Checksums fields.  The
152       Changed-By and Maintainer fields have confusing names.  The
153       Distribution field contains information about what is commonly referred
154       to as a suite.
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SEE ALSO

157       deb822(5), deb-src-control(5), deb-version(7).
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1611.21.21                           2023-02-25                    deb-changes(5)
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