1deb-substvars(5) dpkg suite deb-substvars(5)
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6 deb-substvars - Debian source substitution variables
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9 substvars
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12 Before dpkg-source, dpkg-gencontrol and dpkg-genchanges write their
13 control information (to the source control file .dsc for dpkg-source
14 and to standard output for dpkg-gencontrol and dpkg-genchanges) they
15 perform some variable substitutions on the output file.
16 A variable substitution has the form ${variable-name}. Variable names
18 consist of alphanumerics (a-zA-Z0-9), hyphens (-) and colons (:) and
19 start with an alphanumeric, and are case-sensitive, even though they
20 might refer to other entities which are case-preserving. Variable
21 substitutions are performed repeatedly until none are left; the full
22 text of the field after the substitution is rescanned to look for more
23 substitutions.
24 After all the substitutions have been done each occurrence of the
26 string ${} (which is not a legal substitution) is replaced with a $
27 sign.
28 While variable substitution is done on all control fields, some of
30 those fields are used and needed during the build when the substitution
31 did not yet occur. That's why you can't use variables in the Package,
32 Source and Architecture fields.
33 Variable substitution happens on the content of the fields after they
35 have been parsed, thus if you want a variable to expand over multiple
36 lines you do not have to include a space after the newline. This is
37 done implicitly when the field is output. For example, if the variable
38 ${Description} is set to "foo is bar.${Newline}foo is great." and if
39 you have the following field:
40 Description: foo application
42 ${Description}
43 .
44 More text.
45 It will result in:
47 Description: foo application
49 foo is bar.
50 foo is great.
51 .
52 More text.
53 Variables can be set using the -V common option. They can be also
55 specified in the file debian/substvars (or whatever other file is
56 specified using the -T option). This file consists of lines of the form
57 name=value. Trailing whitespace on each line, blank lines, and lines
58 starting with a # symbol (comments) are ignored.
59 Additionally, the following standard variables are available:
61 Arch The current host architecture (i.e. the architecture the package
63 is being built for, the equivalent of DEB_HOST_ARCH).
64 source:Version
66 The source package version (since dpkg 1.13.19).
67 source:Upstream-Version
69 The upstream source package version, including the Debian
70 version epoch if any (since dpkg 1.13.19).
71 binary:Version
73 The binary package version (which may differ from source:Version
74 in a binNMU for example; since dpkg 1.13.19).
75 Source-Version
77 The source package version (from the changelog file). This
78 variable is now obsolete and emits an error when used as its
79 meaning is different from its function, please use the
80 source:Version or binary:Version as appropriate.
81 source:Synopsis
83 The source package synopsis, extracted from the source stanza
84 Description field, if it exists (since dpkg 1.19.0).
85 source:Extended-Description
87 The source package extended description, extracted from the
88 source stanza Description field, if it exists (since dpkg
89 1.19.0).
90 Installed-Size
92 The approximate total size of the package's installed files.
93 This value is copied into the corresponding control file field;
94 setting it will modify the value of that field. If this variable
95 is not set dpkg-gencontrol will compute the default value by
96 accumulating the size of each regular file and symlink rounded
97 to 1 KiB used units, and a baseline of 1 KiB for any other
98 filesystem object type.
99 Note: Take into account that this can only ever be an
101 approximation, as the actual size used on the installed system
102 will depend greatly on the filesystem used and its parameters,
103 which might end up using either more or less space than the
104 specified in this field.
105 Extra-Size
107 Additional disk space used when the package is installed. If
108 this variable is set its value is added to that of the
109 Installed-Size variable (whether set explicitly or using the
110 default value) before it is copied into the Installed-Size
111 control file field.
112 S:fieldname
114 The value of the source stanza field fieldname (which must be
115 given in the canonical capitalisation; since dpkg 1.18.11).
116 Setting these variables has no effect other than on places where
117 they are expanded explicitly. These variables are only
118 available when generating binary control files.
119 F:fieldname
121 The value of the output field fieldname (which must be given in
122 the canonical capitalisation). Setting these variables has no
123 effect other than on places where they are expanded explicitly.
124 Format The .changes file format version generated by this version of
126 the source packaging scripts. If you set this variable the
127 contents of the Format field in the .changes file will change
128 too.
129 Newline, Space, Tab
131 These variables each hold the corresponding character.
132 shlibs:dependencyfield
134 Variable settings with names of this form are generated by
135 dpkg-shlibdeps.
136 dpkg:Upstream-Version
138 The upstream version of dpkg (since dpkg 1.13.19).
139 dpkg:Version
141 The full version of dpkg (since dpkg 1.13.19).
142 If a variable is referred to but not defined it generates a warning and
144 an empty value is assumed.
145
147 debian/substvars
148 List of substitution variables and values.
149
151 dpkg(1), dpkg-genchanges(1), dpkg-gencontrol(1), dpkg-shlibdeps(1),
152 dpkg-source(1).
1531.19.7 2019-06-03 deb-substvars(5)