# phpman > man > debcheckout(1) [DEBCHECKOUT(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/DEBCHECKOUT/1/markdown) [DEBCHECKOUT(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/DEBCHECKOUT/1/markdown) ## NAME debcheckout - checkout the development repository of a Debian package ## SYNOPSIS **debcheckout** [_OPTIONS_] _PACKAGE_ [_DESTDIR_] **debcheckout** [_OPTIONS_] _REPOSITORY_URL_ [_DESTDIR_] ### debcheckout --help ## DESCRIPTION **debcheckout** retrieves the information about the Version Control System used to maintain a given Debian package (the _PACKAGE_ argument), and then checks out the latest (potentially unreleased) version of the package from its repository. By default the repository is checked out to the _PACKAGE_ directory; this can be overridden by providing the _DESTDIR_ argument. The information about where the repository is available is expected to be found in **Vcs-*** fields available in the source package record. For example, the **vim** package exposes such information with a field like **Vcs-Hg:**  ****, you can see it by grepping through **apt-cache** **showsrc** **vim**. If more than one source package record containing **Vcs-*** fields is available, **debcheckout** will select the record with the highest version number. Alternatively, a particular version may be selected from those available by specifying the package name as _PACKAGE_=_VERSION_. If you already know the URL of a given repository you can invoke **debcheckout** directly on it, but you will probably need to pass the appropriate **-t** flag. That is, some heuristics are in use to guess the repository type from the URL; if they fail, you might want to override the guessed type using **-t**. The currently supported version control systems are: Arch (arch), Bazaar (bzr), CVS (cvs), Darcs (darcs), Git (git), Mercurial (hg) and Subversion (svn). ## OPTIONS **GENERAL** **OPTIONS** ### -a --auth Work in authenticated mode; this means that for known repositories (mainly those hosted on _) URL rewriting is attempted before checking out, to ensure that the repository can be committed to. For example, for Git repositories hosted on Salsa this means that <_git@salsa.debian.org>:...git_ will be used instead of _. There are built-in rules for salsa.debian.org, alioth.debian.org and github.com. Other hosts can be configured using **DEBCHECKOUT**___**AUTH**___**URLS**. ### -d --details Only print a list of detailed information about the package repository, without checking it out; the output format is a list of fields, each field being a pair of TAB-separated field name and field value. The actual fields depend on the repository type. This action might require a network connection to the remote repository. Also see **-p**. This option and **-p** are mutually exclusive. ### -h --help Print a detailed help message and exit. ### -p --print Only print a summary about package repository information, without checking it out; the output format is TAB-separated with two fields: repository type, repository URL. This action works offline, it only uses "static" information as known by APT's cache. Also see **-d**. This option and **-d** are mutually exclusive. ### -P --package When checking out a repository URL, instead of trying to guess the package name from the URL, use this package name. ### -t --type Override the repository type (which defaults to some heuristics based on the URL or, in case of heuristic failure, the fallback "git"); should be one of the currently supported repository types. ### -u --user Specify the login name to be used in authenticated mode (see **-a**). This option implies **-a**: you don't need to specify both. ### -f --file Specify that the named file should be extracted from the repository and placed in the destination directory. May be used more than once to extract multiple files. **--source=never**|**auto**|**download-only**|**always** Some packages only place the _debian_ directory in version control. **debcheckout** can retrieve the remaining parts of the source using **apt-get** **source** and move the files into the checkout. **never** Only use the repository. ### auto (default) If the repository only contains the _debian_ directory, retrieve the source package, unpack it, and also place the _.orig.tar.gz_ file into the current directory. Else, do nothing. **download-only** Always retrieve the _.orig.tar.gz_ file, but do not unpack it. **always** Always retrieve the _.orig.tar.gz_ file, and if the repository only contains the _debian_ directory, unpack it. **VCS-SPECIFIC** **OPTIONS** _GIT-SPECIFIC_ _OPTIONS_ **--git-track** _BRANCHES_ Specify a list of remote branches which will be set up for tracking (as in **git**  **branch**  **--track**, see [**git-branch**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-branch/1/markdown)) after the remote Git repository has been cloned. The list should be given as a space-separated list of branch names. As a shorthand, the string "*****" can be given to require tracking of all remote branches. ## CONFIGURATION VARIABLES The two configuration files _/etc/devscripts.conf_ and _~/.devscripts_ are sourced by a shell 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: **DEBCHECKOUT**___**AUTH**___**URLS** This variable should be a space separated list of Perl regular expressions and replacement texts, which must come in pairs: _REGEXP_ _TEXT_ _REGEXP_ _TEXT_ ... and so on. Each pair denotes a substitution which is applied to repository URLs if other built-in means of building URLs for authenticated mode (see **-a**) have failed. References to matching substrings in the replacement texts are allowed as usual in Perl by the means of **$1**, **$2**, ... and so on. This setting is used to configure the "authenticated mode" location for repositories. The Debian repositories on salsa.debian.org are implicitly defined, as is github.com. Here is a sample snippet suitable for the configuration files: DEBCHECKOUT_AUTH_URLS=' ^\w+://(svn\.example\.com)/(.*) svn+ssh://$1/srv/svn/$2 ^\w+://(git\.example\.com)/(.*) git+ssh://$1/home/git/$2 ' Note that whitespace is not allowed in either regexps or replacement texts. Also, given that configuration files are sourced by a shell, you probably want to use single quotes around the value of this variable. **DEBCHECKOUT**___**SOURCE** This variable determines under what scenarios the associated orig.tar.gz for a package will be downloaded. See the **--source** option for a description of the values. **DEBCHECKOUT**___**USER** This variable sets the username for authenticated mode. It can be overridden with the **--user** option. Setting this variable does not imply the use of authenticated mode, it still has to be activated with **--auth**. ## SEE ALSO [**apt-cache**(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/apt-cache/8/markdown), Section 6.2.5 of the Debian Developer's Reference (for more information about **Vcs-*** fields): _. ## AUTHOR **debcheckout** and this manpage have been written by Stefano Zacchiroli <<_zack@debian.org_>>. Debian Utilities 2026-03-04 [DEBCHECKOUT(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/DEBCHECKOUT/1/markdown)