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+<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN">
+
+<refentry id="deb.5">
+ <refmeta>
+ <refentrytitle>deb</refentrytitle>
+ <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
+ <refmiscinfo class="source">Debian Project</refmiscinfo>
+ <refmiscinfo class="manual">dpkg suite</refmiscinfo>
+ </refmeta>
+
+ <refnamediv>
+ <refname>deb</refname>
+ <refpurpose>Debian binary package format</refpurpose>
+ </refnamediv>
+
+ <refsynopsisdiv>
+ <filename>filename.deb</filename>
+ </refsynopsisdiv>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Description</title>
+
+ <para>
+ The <filename>.deb</filename> format is the Debian binary package file
+ format. It is understood by <productname>dpkg</productname> 0.93.76 and
+ later, and is generated by default by all versions of
+ <productname>dpkg</productname> since 1.2.0 and all i386/ELF versions
+ since 1.1.1elf.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The format described here is used since Debian 0.93; details of the old
+ format are described in
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>deb-old</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
+ </para>
+ </refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Format</title>
+
+ <para>
+ The file is an <emphasis>ar</emphasis> archive with a magic number of
+ <emphasis>!<arch></emphasis>.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The first member is named <filename>debian-binary</filename> and contains
+ a series of lines, separated by newlines. Currently only one line is
+ present, the format version number, <emphasis>2.0</emphasis> at the time
+ this manual page was written. Programs which read new-format archives
+ should be prepared for the minor number to be increased and new lines to
+ be present, and should ignore these if this is the case.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ If the major number has changed, an incompatible change has been made and
+ the program should stop. If it has not, then the program should be able
+ to safely continue, unless it encounters an unexpected member in the
+ archive (except at the end), as described below.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The second required member is named <filename>control.tar.gz</filename>.
+ It is a gzipped tar archive containing the package control information,
+ as a series of plain files, of which the file
+ <filename>control</filename> is mandatory and contains the core control
+ information. Please see the <emphasis remap='I'>Debian Packaging Manual,
+ section 2.2</emphasis> for details of these files. The control tarball
+ may optionally contain an entry for `<filename>.</filename>', the current
+ directory.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The third, last required member is named
+ <filename>data.tar.gz</filename>. It contains the filesystem archive as a
+ gzipped tar archive.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ These members must occur in this exact order. Current implementations
+ should ignore any additional members after
+ <filename>data.tar.gz</filename>. Further members may be defined in the
+ future, and (if possible) will be placed after these three. Any
+ additional members that may need to be inserted before
+ <filename>data.tar.gz</filename> and which should be safely ignored by
+ older programs, will have names starting with an underscore.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Those new members which won't be able to be safely ignored will be
+ inserted before <filename>data.tar.gz</filename> with names starting with
+ something other than underscores, or will (more likely) cause the major
+ version number to be increased.
+ </para>
+ </refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>See Also</title>
+
+ <para>
+ <citerefentry>
+ <refentrytitle>deb-old</refentrytitle>
+ <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
+ </citerefentry>,
+
+ <citerefentry>
+ <refentrytitle>dpkg-deb</refentrytitle>
+ <manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
+ </citerefentry>,
+
+ <citerefentry>
+ <refentrytitle>deb-control</refentrytitle>
+ <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
+ </citerefentry>,
+
+ Debian Packaging Manual
+ </para>
+ </refsect1>
+</refentry>
+