man > mk-origtargz(1)

MK-ORIGTARGZ(1)                                                                      MK-ORIGTARGZ(1)

NAME
       mk-origtargz - rename upstream tarball, optionally changing the compression and removing
       unwanted files

SYNOPSIS
       mk-origtargz [options] foo-1.0.tar.gz
       mk-origtargz --help

DESCRIPTION
       mk-origtargz  renames the given file to match what is expected by dpkg-buildpackage, based on
       the source package name  and  version  in  debian/changelog.  It  can  convert  zip  to  tar,
       optionally  change  the  compression  scheme and remove files according to Files-Excluded and
       Files-Excluded-component in debian/copyright. The resulting file is placed  in  debian/../...
       (In  debian/copyright,  the Files-Excluded and Files-Excluded-component stanzas are a part of
       the first paragraph and there is a blank line before the following paragraphs  which  contain
       Files  and  other  stanzas.  The  Files-Included  stanza  may  be  used  to  ignore  parts of
       subdirectories specified by the Files-Excluded stanza See uscan(1) "COPYRIGHT FILE EXAMPLE".)

       The archive type for zip is detected by "file --dereference --brief --mime-type" command.  So
       any zip type archives such as jar and xpi are treated in the same way.

       If the package name is given via the --package option, no information is read  from  debian/,
       and the result file is placed in the current directory.

       mk-origtargz is commonly called via uscan, which first obtains the upstream tarball.

OPTIONS
   Metadata options
       The following options extend or replace information taken from debian/.

       --package package
           Use package as the name of the Debian source package, and do not require or use a debian/
           directory. This option can only be used together with --version.

           The default is to use the package name of the first entry in debian/changelog.

       -v, --version version
           Use  version as the version of the package. This needs to be the upstream version portion
           of a full Debian version, i.e. no Debian revision, no epoch.

           The default is to use the  upstream  portion  of  the  version  of  the  first  entry  in
           debian/changelog.

       --exclude-file glob
           Remove  files  matching  the  given  glob from the tarball, as if it was listed in Files-
           Excluded.

       --copyright-file filename
           Remove files matching the patterns found in filename, which should have the format  of  a
           Debian                     copyright                     file                    (Format:
           https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/ to be precise). Errors
           parsing that file are silently ignored, exactly as is the case with debian/copyright.

           Unmatched patterns will emit a warning so the user can verify whether it is correct.   If
           there  are  multiple  patterns  which match a file, only the last one will count as being
           matched.

           Both the --exclude-file and --copyright-file options amend the list of patterns found  in
           debian/copyright. If you do not want to read that file, you will have to use --package.

       --signature signature-mode
           Set signature-mode:

           0 for no signature
           1 for normal detached signature
           2 for signature on decompressed
           3 for self signature
       --signature-file signature-file
           Use  signature-file  as  the signature file corresponding to the Debian source package to
           create a dpkg-source (post-stretch) compatible signature file.  (optional)

   Action options
       These options specify what exactly mk-origtargz should do. The options --copy,  --rename  and
       --symlink are mutually exclusive.

       --symlink
           Make  the  resulting  file  a  symlink  to  the given original file. (This is the default
           behaviour.)

           If the file has to be modified (because it is a zip, xpi or zst file, because of --repack
           or Files-Excluded), this option behaves like --copy.

       --copy
           Make the resulting file a copy of the original file (unless it has  to  be  modified,  of
           course).

       --rename
           Rename the original file.

           If  the  file has to be modified (because it is a zip, xpi, zst file, because of --repack
           or Files-Excluded), this implies that the original file is deleted afterwards.

       --repack
           If the given file is  not  compressed  using  the  desired  format  (see  --compression),
           recompress it.

       -S, --repack-suffix suffix
           If  the file has to be modified, because of Files-Excluded, append suffix to the upstream
           version.

       --force-repack
           Recompress even if file is compressed using the desired format and no files were deleted.

       -c, --component componentname
           Use <componentname> as the component  name  for  the  secondary  upstream  tarball.   Set
           componentname  as  the  component  name.   This  is  used only for the secondary upstream
           tarball of the Debian source package.  Then packagename_version.orig-componentname.tar.gz
           is created.

       --compression [ gzip | bzip2 | lzma | xz | default ]
           The default method is xz. When mk-origtargz is launched in  a  debian  source  repository
           which format is "1.0" or undefined, the method switches to gzip.

       -C, --directory directory
           Put the resulting file in the given directory.

       --unzipopt options
           Add the extra options to use with the unzip command such as -a, -aa, and -b.

SEE ALSO
       uscan(1), uupdate(1)

AUTHOR
       mk-origtargz and this manpage have been written by Joachim Breitner <nomeata AT debian.org>.

Debian Utilities                             2026-02-25                              MK-ORIGTARGZ(1)