NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | FILES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

dpkg-gencontrol(1)               dpkg suite               dpkg-gencontrol(1)

NAME         top

       dpkg-gencontrol - generate Debian control files

SYNOPSIS         top

       dpkg-gencontrol [option...]

DESCRIPTION         top

       dpkg-gencontrol reads information from an unpacked Debian source tree
       and generates a binary package control file (which defaults to
       debian/tmp/DEBIAN/control); during this process it will simplify the
       relation fields.
       Thus Pre-Depends, Depends, Recommends and Suggests are simplified in
       this order by removing dependencies which are known to be true
       according to the stronger dependencies already parsed. It will also
       remove any self-dependency (in fact it will remove any dependency
       which evaluates to true given the current version of the package as
       installed). Logically it keeps the intersection of multiple
       dependencies on the same package. The order of dependencies is
       preserved as best as possible: if any dependency must be discarded
       due to another dependency appearing further in the field, the
       superseding dependency will take the place of the discarded one.
       The other relation fields (Enhances, Conflicts, Breaks, Replaces and
       Provides) are also simplified individually by computing the union of
       the various dependencies when a package is listed multiple times in
       the field.
       dpkg-gencontrol also adds an entry for the binary package to
       debian/files.

OPTIONS         top

       -vversion
              Sets the version number of the binary package which will be
              generated.
       -Vname=value
              Set an output substitution variable. See deb-substvars(5) for
              discussion of output substitution.
       -Tsubstvars-file
              Read substitution variables in substvars-file; the default is
              debian/substvars.  This option can be used multiple times to
              read substitution variables from multiple files (since dpkg
              1.15.6).
       -Dfield=value
              Override or add an output control file field.
       -Ufield
              Remove an output control file field.
       -ccontrol-file
              Specifies the main source control file to read information
              from. The default is debian/control.
       -lchangelog-file
              Specifies the changelog file to read information from. The
              default is debian/changelog.
       -ffiles-list-file
              Read or write the list of files to be uploaded here, rather
              than using debian/files.
       -Fchangelog-format
              Specifies the format of the changelog. See
              dpkg-parsechangelog(1) for information about alternative
              formats.
       -ppackage
              Generate information for the binary package package.  If the
              source control file lists only one binary package then this
              option may be omitted; otherwise it is essential to select
              which binary package's information to generate.
       -nfilename
              Assume the filename of the package will be filename instead of
              the normal package_version_arch.deb filename.
       -is, -ip, -isp
              These options are ignored for compatibility with older
              versions of the dpkg build scripts but are now deprecated.
              Previously they were used to tell dpkg-gencontrol to include
              the Section and Priority fields in the control file. This is
              now the default behaviour. If you want to get the old
              behaviour you can use the -U option to delete the fields from
              the control file.
       -Ppackage-build-dir
              Tells dpkg-source that the package is being built in package-
              build-dir instead of debian/tmp.  This value is used to find
              the default value of the Installed-Size substitution variable
              and control file field (using du), and for the default
              location of the output file.
       -O[filename]
              Print the control file to standard output (or filename if
              specified, since dpkg 1.17.2), rather than to
              debian/tmp/DEBIAN/control (or package-build-dir/DEBIAN/control
              if -P was used).
       -?, --help
              Show the usage message and exit.
       --version
              Show the version and exit.

FILES         top

       debian/control
              The main source control information file, giving version-
              independent information about the source package and the
              binary packages it can produce.
       debian/files
              The list of generated files which are part of the upload being
              prepared.  dpkg-gencontrol adds the presumed filenames of
              binary packages whose control files it generates here.

SEE ALSO         top

       deb-substvars(5), deb-src-control(5), deb-changelog(5),
       deb-control(5).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩.  If you have a bug report for
       this manual page, see 
       ⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩.  This page
       was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository 
       ⟨git://git.debian.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2017-07-05.  If you dis‐
       cover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or
       you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail
       to man-pages@man7.org
1.18.15-3-ga2ef                  1970-01-01               dpkg-gencontrol(1)

Pages that refer to this page: deb-substvars(5)