Chapter 4. Source packages

26

4.9 Variable substitutions:

debian/substvars

When

dpkg gencontrol

,

dpkg genchanges

and

dpkg source

generate control files they

perform variable substitutions on their output just before writing it. Variable substitutions

have the form

${

variable

}

. The optional file

debian/substvars

contains variable substi 

tutions to be used; variables can also be set directly from

debian/rules

using the

 V

option

to the source packaging commands, and certain predefined variables are also available.

The

debian/substvars

file is usually generated and modified dynamically by

debian

/rules

targets, in which case it must be removed by the

clean

target.

See

dpkg source(1)

for full details about source variable substitutions, including the format

of

debian/substvars

.

4.10 Generated files list:

debian/files

This file is not a permanent part of the source tree; it is used while building packages to record

which files are being generated.

dpkg genchanges

uses it when it generates a

.changes

file.

It should not exist in a shipped source package, and so it (and any backup files or temporary

files such as

files.new

15

) should be removed by the

clean

target. It may also be wise to

ensure a fresh start by emptying or removing it at the start of the

binary

target.

When

dpkg gencontrol

is run for a binary package, it adds an entry to

debian/files

for

the

.deb

file that will be created when

dpkg deb   build

is run for that binary package.

So for most packages all that needs to be done with this file is to delete it in the

clean

target.

If a package upload includes files besides the source package and any binary packages whose

control files were made with

dpkg gencontrol

then they should be placed in the parent of

the package's top level directory and

dpkg distaddfile

should be called to add the file to

the list in

debian/files

.

15

files.new

is used as a temporary file by

dpkg gencontrol

and

dpkg distaddfile

  they write a new

version of

files

here before renaming it, to avoid leaving a corrupted copy if an error occurs.