1deb-changes(5) dpkg suite deb-changes(5)
2
6 deb-changes - Debian changes file format
7
9 filename.changes
10
12 Each Debian upload is composed of a .changes control file, which
13 contains a number of fields. Each field begins with a tag, such as
14 Source or Binary (case insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body
15 of the field. Fields are delimited only by field tags. In other
16 words, field text may be multiple lines in length, but the installation
17 tools will generally join lines when processing the body of the field
18 (except in case of the multiline fields Description, Changes, Files,
19 Checksums-Sha1 and Checksums-Sha256, see below).
20 The control data might be enclosed in an OpenPGP ASCII Armored
22 signature, as specified in RFC4880.
23
25 Format: format-version (required)
26 The value of this field declares the format version of the file.
27 The syntax of the field value is a version number with a major
28 and minor component. Backward incompatible changes to the
29 format will bump the major version, and backward compatible
30 changes (such as field additions) will bump the minor version.
31 The current format version is 1.8.
32 Date: release-date (required)
34 The date the package was built or last edited. It must be in
35 the same format as the date in a deb-changelog(5) entry.
36 The value of this field is usually extracted from the
38 debian/changelog file.
39 Source: source-name [(source-version)] (required)
41 The name of the source package. If the source version differs
42 from the binary version, then the source-name will be followed
43 by a source-version in parenthesis. This can happen when the
44 upload is a binary-only non-maintainer upload.
45 Binary: binary-package-list (required)
47 This folded field is a space-separated list of binary packages
48 to upload.
49 Architecture: arch-list
51 Lists the architectures of the files currently being uploaded.
52 Common architectures are amd64, armel, i386, etc. Note that the
53 all value is meant for packages that are architecture
54 independent. If the source for the package is also being
55 uploaded, the special entry source is also present.
56 Architecture wildcards must never be present in the list.
57 Version: version-string (required)
59 Typically, this is the original package's version number in
60 whatever form the program's author uses. It may also include a
61 Debian revision number (for non-native packages). The exact
62 format and sorting algorithm are described in deb-version(5).
63 Distribution: distributions (required)
65 Lists one or more space-separated distributions where this
66 version should be installed when it is uploaded to the archive.
67 Urgency: urgency (recommended)
69 The urgency of the upload. The currently known values, in
70 increasing order of urgency, are: low, medium, high, critical
71 and emergency.
72 Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
74 Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@example.org>”, and
75 is typically the person who created the package, as opposed to
76 the author of the software that was packaged.
77 Changed-By: fullname-email
79 Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@example.org>”, and
80 is typically the person who prepared the package changes for
81 this release.
82 Description: (recommended)
84 binary-package-name - binary-package-summary
85 This multiline field contains a list of binary package names
86 followed by a space, a dash (‘-’) and their possibly truncated
87 short descriptions.
88 Closes: bug-number-list
90 A space-separated list of bug report numbers that have been
91 resolved with this upload. The distribution archive software
92 might use this field to automatically close the referred bug
93 numbers in the distribution bug tracking system.
94 Binary-Only: yes
96 This field denotes that the upload is a binary-only non-
97 maintainer build. It originates from the binary-only=yes
98 key/value from the changelog matadata entry.
99 Built-For-Profiles: profile-list
101 This field specifies a whitespace separated list of build
102 profiles that this upload was built with.
103 Changes: (required)
105 changelog-entries
106 This multiline field contains the concatenated text of all
107 changelog entries that are part of the upload. To make this a
108 valid multiline field empty lines are replaced with a single
109 full stop (‘.’) and all lines are indented by one space
110 character. The exact content depends on the changelog format.
111 Files: (required)
113 md5sum size section priority filename
114 This multiline field contains a list of files with an md5sum,
115 size, section and priority for each one.
116 The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as
118 the field name followed by a colon) is always empty. The
119 content of the field is expressed as continuation lines, one
120 line per file. Each line consists of space-separated entries
121 describing the file: the md5sum, the file size, the file
122 section, the file priority, and the file name.
123 This field lists all files that make up the upload. The list of
125 files in this field must match the list of files in the other
126 related Checksums fields.
127 Checksums-Sha1: (required)
129 Checksums-Sha256: (required)
130 checksum size filename
131 These multiline fields contain a list of files with a checksum
132 and size for each one. These fields have the same syntax and
133 differ only in the checksum algorithm used: SHA-1 for
134 Checksums-Sha1 and SHA-256 for Checksums-Sha256.
135 The first line of the field value (the part on the same line as
137 the field name followed by a colon) is always empty. The
138 content of the field is expressed as continuation lines, one
139 line per file. Each line consists of space-separated entries
140 describing the file: the checksum, the file size, and the file
141 name.
142 These fields list all files that make up the upload. The list
144 of files in these fields must match the list of files in the
145 Files field and the other related Checksums fields.
146
148 The Files field is inconsistent with the other Checksums fields. The
149 Change-By and Maintainer fields have confusing names. The Distribution
150 field contains information about what is commonly referred to as a
151 suite.
152
154 deb-src-control(5), deb-version(5).
1551.18.25 2018-06-26 deb-changes(5)