man > debc(1)

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  pro‐
       gram 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 directory
       tree  until it finds a debian/changelog file.  As a safeguard against stray files causing po‐
       tential problems, it will examine the name of the parent directory  once  it  finds  the  de‐
       bian/changelog file, and check that the directory name corresponds to the package name.  Pre‐
       cisely   how   it   does   this  is  controlled  by  two  configuration  file  variables  DE‐
       VSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL and DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX, and their corresponding com‐
       mand-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 de‐
              bian/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 re‐
       placed  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-ver‐
       sion.

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  option
              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  order
       to  set  configuration variables.  Command line options can be used to override configuration
       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 corre‐
              sponds to the --debs-dir command line option.  This directive could be used, for exam‐
              ple, 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  variables.
              Note  that  these  are package-wide configuration variables, and will therefore affect
              all devscripts scripts which check their value, as described in their respective  man‐
              pages 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)