dpkg-deb man page on ElementaryOS

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dpkg-deb(1)			  dpkg suite			   dpkg-deb(1)

NAME
       dpkg-deb - Debian package archive (.deb) manipulation tool

SYNOPSIS
       dpkg-deb [option...] command

DESCRIPTION
       dpkg-deb packs, unpacks and provides information about Debian archives.

       Use dpkg to install and remove packages from your system.

       You  can also invoke dpkg-deb by calling dpkg with whatever options you
       want to pass to dpkg-deb. dpkg will spot that you wanted	 dpkg-deb  and
       run it for you.

COMMANDS
       -b, --build directory [archive|directory]
	      Creates  a  debian  archive  from	 the filesystem tree stored in
	      directory. directory must have a DEBIAN subdirectory, which con‐
	      tains  the  control  information	files such as the control file
	      itself. This directory will not appear in the  binary  package's
	      filesystem  archive,  but instead the files in it will be put in
	      the binary package's control information area.

	      Unless you specify --nocheck, dpkg-deb will read	DEBIAN/control
	      and parse it. It will check it for syntax errors and other prob‐
	      lems, and display the name of the binary	package	 being	built.
	      dpkg-deb	will  also  check  the	permissions  of the maintainer
	      scripts and other files found in the DEBIAN control  information
	      directory.

	      If  no archive is specified then dpkg-deb will write the package
	      into the file directory.deb.

	      If the archive to be created already exists it will be overwrit‐
	      ten.

	      If  the  second argument is a directory then dpkg-deb will write
	      to the file package_version_arch.deb, or package_version.deb  if
	      no  Architecture	field  is present in the package control file.
	      When a target directory is specified, rather than	 a  file,  the
	      --nocheck	 option	 may not be used (since dpkg-deb needs to read
	      and parse the package control file to determine  which  filename
	      to use).

       -I, --info archive [control-file-name...]
	      Provides information about a binary package archive.

	      If no control-file-names are specified then it will print a sum‐
	      mary of the contents of the package as well as its control file.

	      If any control-file-names are specified then dpkg-deb will print
	      them  in the order they were specified; if any of the components
	      weren't present it will print an error message to	 stderr	 about
	      each one and exit with status 2.

       -W, --show archive
	      Provides	information about a binary package archive in the for‐
	      mat specified by the --showformat argument. The  default	format
	      displays	the  package's name and version on one line, separated
	      by a tabulator.

       -f, --field archive [control-field-name...]
	      Extracts control file information from a binary package archive.

	      If no control-file-fields are specified then it will  print  the
	      whole control file.

	      If any are specified then dpkg-deb will print their contents, in
	      the order in which they appear in the control file. If more than
	      one  control-file-field  is specified then dpkg-deb will precede
	      each with its field name (and a colon and space).

	      No errors are reported for fields requested but not found.

       -c, --contents archive
	      Lists the contents of the filesystem tree archive portion of the
	      package  archive.	 It is currently produced in the format gener‐
	      ated by tar's verbose listing.

       -x, --extract archive directory
	      Extracts the filesystem tree from a  package  archive  into  the
	      specified directory.

	      Note  that  extracting  a package to the root directory will not
	      result in a correct installation! Use dpkg to install packages.

	      directory (but not its parents) will be  created	if  necessary,
	      and  its permissions modified to match the contents of the pack‐
	      age.

       -X, --vextract archive directory
	      Is like --extract (-x) with --verbose (-v) which prints a	 list‐
	      ing of the files extracted as it goes.

       -R, --raw-extract archive directory
	      Extracts the filesystem tree from a package archive into a spec‐
	      ified directory, and the control information files into a DEBIAN
	      subdirectory of the specified directory.

	      The  target  directory  (but not its parents) will be created if
	      necessary.

       --fsys-tarfile archive
	      Extracts the filesystem tree data	 from  a  binary  package  and
	      sends  it to standard output in tar format. Together with tar(1)
	      this can be used to extract a particular file from a package ar‐
	      chive.  The input archive will always be processed sequentially.

       -e, --control archive [directory]
	      Extracts	the  control  information files from a package archive
	      into the specified directory.

	      If no directory is specified then a subdirectory DEBIAN  in  the
	      current directory is used.

	      The  target  directory  (but not its parents) will be created if
	      necessary.

       -?, --help
	      Show the usage message and exit.

       --version
	      Show the version and exit.

OPTIONS
       --showformat=format
	      This option is used to specify the format of the	output	--show
	      will  produce.  The  format  is a string that will be output for
	      each package listed.

	      The string may reference any status field	 using	the  "${field-
	      name}"  form,  a list of the valid fields can be easily produced
	      using -I on the same package. A complete explanation of the for‐
	      matting  options	(including escape sequences and field tabbing)
	      can be found in the explanation of the  --showformat  option  in
	      dpkg-query(1).

	      The default for this field is "${Package}\t${Version}\n".

       -zcompress-level
	      Specify  which  compression level to use on the compressor back‐
	      end, when building a package (default is 9 for gzip and bzip2, 6
	      for  xz  and  lzma).   The accepted values are 0-9 with: 0 being
	      mapped to compressor none for gzip and 0 mapped to 1 for	bzip2.
	      Before dpkg 1.16.2 level 0 was equivalent to compressor none for
	      all compressors.

       -Scompress-strategy
	      Specify which compression strategy  to  use  on  the  compressor
	      backend,	when  building	a package (since dpkg 1.16.2). Allowed
	      values are none (since dpkg 1.16.4), filtered, huffman, rle  and
	      fixed for gzip (since dpkg 1.17.0) and extreme for xz.

       -Zcompress-type
	      Specify  which  compression type to use when building a package.
	      Allowed values are gzip, xz, bzip2, lzma, and none  (default  is
	      xz).

       --deb-format=format
	      Set  the	archive	 format version used when building (since dpkg
	      1.17.0).	Allowed	 values	 are  2.0  for	the  new  format,  and
	      0.939000 for the old one (default is 2.0).

	      The old archive format is less easily parsed by non-Debian tools
	      and is now obsolete; its only use is when building  packages  to
	      be  parsed  by  versions	of  dpkg older than 0.93.76 (September
	      1995), which was released as i386 a.out only.

       --new  This is a legacy alias for --deb-format=2.0.

       --old  This is a legacy alias for --deb-format=0.939000.

       --nocheck
	      Inhibits dpkg-deb --build's usual checks on  the	proposed  con‐
	      tents of an archive. You can build any archive you want, no mat‐
	      ter how broken, this way.

       -v, --verbose
	      Enables verbose output. This currently  only  affects  --extract
	      making it behave like --vextract.

       -D, --debug
	      Enables debugging output. This is not very interesting.

ENVIRONMENT
       TMPDIR If set, dpkg-deb will use it as the directory in which to create
	      temporary files and directories.

NOTES
       Do not attempt to use just dpkg-deb to install software! You  must  use
       dpkg  proper  to ensure that all the files are correctly placed and the
       package's scripts run and its status and contents recorded.

BUGS
       dpkg-deb -I package1.deb package2.deb does the wrong thing.

       There is no authentication on .deb files; in fact, there isn't  even  a
       straightforward checksum.  (Higher level tools like APT support authen‐
       ticating .deb packages retrieved from  a	 given	repository,  and  most
       packages	  nowadays   provide  an  md5sum  control  file	 generated  by
       debian/rules. Though this is not directly supported by the lower	 level
       tools.)

SEE ALSO
       deb(5), deb-control(5), dpkg(1), dselect(1).

Debian Project			  2013-03-27			   dpkg-deb(1)
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