Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Name

dpkg-deb

Synopsis

dpkg-deb action [options]

Backend command for building and managing Debian package archives. Also see dpkg; you’ll often want to use dpkg to pass commands through to dpkg-deb, rather than call dpkg-deb directly.

Actions

-b dir [archive], --build dir [archive]

Create an archive from the filesystem tree starting with directory dir. The directory must have a DEBIAN subdirectory containing the control file and any other control information. If archive is specified and is a filename, the package is written to that file; if no archive is specified, the package is written to dir.deb. If the archive already exists, it is replaced. If archiveis the name of a directory, dpkg-deb looks in the control file for the information it needs to generate the package name. (Note that for this reason, you cannot use --nocheck with a directory name.)

-c archive, --contents archive

List the filesystem-tree portion of archive.

-e archive [dir], --control archive [dir]

Extract control information from archive into the directory dir, which is created if it doesn’t exist. If dir is omitted, a DEBIAN subdirectory in the current directory is used.

-f archive [control-fields], --field archive [control-fields]

Extract information about one or more fields in the control file for archive. If no fields are provided, print the entire control file.

-h, --help

Print help information and exit.

-I archive [control-files], --info archive [control-files]

Write information about binary package archive to standard ...