man > debclean(1)

DEBCLEAN(1)                            General Commands Manual                           DEBCLEAN(1)

NAME
       debclean - clean up a sourcecode tree

SYNOPSIS
       debclean [options]

DESCRIPTION
       debclean  walks through the directory tree starting at the directory tree in which it was in‐
       voked, and executes debuild -- clean for each Debian source directory encountered.  These di‐
       rectories are recognised by containing a debian/changelog  file  for  a  package  whose  name
       matches that of the directory.  Name matching is described below.

       If  debclean is invoked from a directory that is already a Debian source package, it will not
       descend into its subdirectories.

       Also, if the --cleandebs option is given, then in every directory containing a Debian  source
       tree,  all  files named *.deb, *.changes and *.build are removed.  The .dsc, .diff.gz and the
       (.orig).tar.gz files are not touched so that the release can be reconstructed  if  necessary,
       and  the .upload files are left so that debchange functions correctly.  The --nocleandebs op‐
       tion prevents this extra cleaning behaviour and the --cleandebs option forces  it.   The  de‐
       fault is not to clean these files.

       debclean uses debuild(1) to clean the source tree.

Directory name checking
       In  common  with  several other scripts in the devscripts package, debclean will walk through
       the directory tree searching for debian/changelog files.  As a safeguard against stray  files
       causing  potential problems, it will examine the name of the parent directory once it finds a
       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 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
       --cleandebs
              Also remove all .deb, .changes and .build files from the parent directory.

       --nocleandebs
              Do not remove the .deb, .changes and .build files from the parent directory;  this  is
              the default behaviour.

       --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.

       --no-conf, --noconf
              Do  not read any configuration files.  This can only be used as the first option given
              on the command-line.

       -d     Do not run dpkg-checkbuilddeps to check build dependencies.

       --help Display a help message and exit successfully.

       --version
              Display version and copyright information and exit successfully.

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:

       DEBCLEAN_CLEANDEBS
              If  this  is set to yes, then it is the same as the --cleandebs command line parameter
              being used.

       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
       debuild(1), devscripts.conf(5)

AUTHOR
       Christoph Lameter <clameter AT debian.org>; modifications by Julian Gilbey <jdg AT debian.org>.

DEBIAN                                    Debian Utilities                               DEBCLEAN(1)