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DEBC(1) General Commands Manual DEBC(1)
NAME
debc - view contents of a generated Debian package
SYNOPSIS
debc [options] [changes file] [package ...]
DESCRIPTION
debc figures out the current version of a package and displays information about the .deb
and .udeb files which have been generated in the current build process. If a .changes
file is specified on the command line, the filename must end with .changes, as this is how
the program distinguishes it from package names. If not, then debc has to be called from
within the source code directory tree. In this case, it will look for the .changes file
corresponding to the current package version (by determining the name and version number
from the changelog, and the architecture in the same way as dpkg-buildpackage(1) does).
It then runs dpkg-deb -I and dpkg-deb -c on every .deb and .udeb archive listed in the
.changes file to display information about the contents of the .deb / .udeb files. It
precedes every .deb or .udeb file with the name of the file. It assumes that all of the
.deb / .udeb archives live in the same directory as the .changes file. It is useful for
ensuring that the expected files have ended up in the Debian package.
If a list of packages is given on the command line, then only those debs or udebs with
names in this list of packages will be processed.
Directory name checking
In common with several other scripts in the devscripts package, debc will climb the direc-
tory tree until it finds a debian/changelog file. As a safeguard against stray files
causing potential problems, it will examine the name of the parent directory once it finds
the debian/changelog file, and check that the directory name corresponds to the package
name. Precisely how it does this is controlled by two configuration file variables DE-
VSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL and DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX, and their corresponding
command-line options --check-dirname-level and --check-dirname-regex.
DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL can take the following values:
0 Never check the directory name.
1 Only check the directory name if we have had to change directory in our search for
debian/changelog. This is the default behaviour.
2 Always check the directory name.
The directory name is checked by testing whether the current directory name (as determined
by pwd(1)) matches the regex given by the configuration file option DE-
VSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX or by the command line option --check-dirname-regex regex.
Here regex is a Perl regex (see perlre(3perl)), which will be anchored at the beginning
and the end. If regex contains a '/', then it must match the full directory path. If
not, then it must match the full directory name. If regex contains the string 'PACKAGE',
this will be replaced by the source package name, as determined from the changelog. The
default value for the regex is: 'PACKAGE(-.+)?', thus matching directory names such as
PACKAGE and PACKAGE-version.
OPTIONS
-adebian-architecture, -tGNU-system-type
See dpkg-architecture(1) for a description of these options. They affect the
search for the .changes file. They are provided to mimic the behaviour of dpkg-
buildpackage when determining the name of the .changes file.
--debs-dir directory
Look for the .changes, .deb and .udeb files in directory instead of the parent of
the source directory. This should either be an absolute path or relative to the
top of the source directory.
--check-dirname-level N
See the above section Directory name checking for an explanation of this option.
--check-dirname-regex regex
See the above section Directory name checking for an explanation of this option.
--list-changes
List the filename of the .changes file, and do not display anything else. This op-
tion only makes sense if a .changes file is NOT passed explicitly in the command
line. This can be used for example in a script that needs to reference the .changes
file, without having to duplicate the heuristics for finding it that debc already
implements.
--list-debs
List the filenames of the .deb packages, and do not display their contents.
--no-conf, --noconf
Do not read any configuration files. This can only be used as the first option
given on the command-line.
--help, --version
Show help message and version information respectively.
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
The two configuration files /etc/devscripts.conf and ~/.devscripts are sourced in that or-
der to set configuration variables. Command line options can be used to override configu-
ration file settings. Environment variable settings are ignored for this purpose. The
currently recognised variables are:
DEBRELEASE_DEBS_DIR
This specifies the directory in which to look for the .changes, .deb and .udeb
files, and is either an absolute path or relative to the top of the source tree.
This corresponds to the --debs-dir command line option. This directive could be
used, for example, if you always use pbuilder or svn-buildpackage to build your
packages. Note that it also affects debrelease(1) in the same way, hence the
strange name of the option.
DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL, DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX
See the above section Directory name checking for an explanation of these vari-
ables. Note that these are package-wide configuration variables, and will there-
fore affect all devscripts scripts which check their value, as described in their
respective manpages and in devscripts.conf(5).
SEE ALSO
debdiff(1), dpkg-deb(1), devscripts.conf(5)
AUTHOR
Julian Gilbey <jdg AT debian.org>, based on an original script by Christoph Lameter <clame-
ter AT debian.org>.
DEBIAN Debian Utilities DEBC(1)
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