man debmake (1): program to make the Debian source package

SYNOPSIS

debmake [-h] [-c | -k] [-n | -a package-version.orig.tar.gz | -d | -t ] [-p package] [-u version] [-r revision] [-z extension] [-b "binarypackage, ...]" [-e [email protected]] [-f "firstname lastname"] [-i "buildtool" | -j] [-l license_file] [-m] [-o file] [-q] [-s] [-v] [-w "addon, ..."] [-x [01234]] [-y] [-P] [-T]

DESCRIPTION

debmake helps to build the Debian package from the upstream source. Normally, this is done as follows:

: • The upstream tarball is downloaded as the package-version.tar.gz file.

: • It is untared to create many files under the package-version/ directory.

: • debmake is invoked in the package-version/ directory possibly without any arguments.

: • Files in the package-version/debian/ directory are manually adjusted.

: • dpkg-buildpackage (usually from its wrapper debuild or pdebuild) is invoked in the package-version/ directory to make Debian packages.

Make sure to protect the arguments of the -b, -f, -l, and -w options from the shell interference by quoting them properly.

optional arguments:

-h, --help

: show this help message and exit.

-c, --copyright

scan source for copyright+license text and exit.

: • -c: simple output style

: • -cc: normal output style (similar to the debian/copyright file)

: • -ccc: debug output style

-k, --kludge

compare the debian/copyright file with the source and exit.

The debian/copyright file must be organized to list the generic file patterns before the specific exceptions.

: • -k: basic output style

: • -kk: verbose output style

-n, --native

: make a native Debian source package without .orig.tar.gz. This makes the "3.0 (native)" format package.
If you are thinking to package a Debian specific source tree with debian/* in it into a native Debian package, please think otherwise. You can use "debmake -d -i debuild" or "debmake -t -i debuild" to make the "3.0 (quilt)" format non-native Debian package. The only difference is that the debian/changelog file must use the non-native version scheme: version-revision. The non-native package is more friendly to the downstream distributions.

-a package-version.tar.gz, --archive package-version.tar.gz

use the upstream source tarball directly. (-p, -u, -z: overridden)

The upstream tarball may be specified as package_version.orig.tar.gz and tar.gz for all cases may be tar.bz2, or tar.xz.

If the specified upstream tarball name contains uppercase letters, the Debian package name is generated by converting them to lowercase letters.

If the specified argument is the URL (http://, https://, or ftp://) to the upstream tarball, the upstream tarball is downloaded from the URL using wget or curl.

-d, --dist

: run "make dist" equivalent first to generate upstream tarball and use it.
"debmake -d" is designed to run in the package/ directory hosting the upstream VCS with the build system supporting "make dist" equivalents. (automake/autoconf, Python distutils, ...)

-t, --tar

: run "tar" to generate upstream tarball and use it
"debmake -t" is designed to run in the package/ directory hosting the upstream VCS. Unless you provide the upstream version with the -u option or with the debian/changelog file, a snapshot upstream version is generated in the 0~%y%m%d%H%M format, e.g., 0~1403012359, from the UTC date and time. The generated tarball excludes the debian/ directory found in the upstream VCS. (It also excludes typical VCS directories: .git/ .hg/ .svn/ .CVS/)

-p package, --package package

: set the Debian package name.

-u version, --upstreamversion version

: set the upstream package version.

-r revision, --revision revision

: set the Debian package revision.

-z extension, --targz extension

: set the tarball type, extension=(tar.gz|tar.bz2|tar.xz) (alias: z, b, x)

-b "binarypackage[:type],...", --binaryspec "binarypackage[:type],..."

set binary package specs by the comma separated list of binarypackage:type pairs, e.g., in full form "foo:bin,foo-doc:doc,libfoo1:lib,libfoo1-dbg:dbg,libfoo-dev:dev" or in short form ",-doc,libfoo1,libfoo1-dbg, libfoo-dev".

Here, binarypackage is the binary package name; and optional type is chosen from the following type values:

: • bin: C/C++ compiled ELF binary code package (any, foreign) (default, alias: "", i.e., null-string)

: • data: Data (fonts, graphics, ...) package (all, foreign) (alias: da)

: • dbg: Debug symbol package (any, same) (alias: db) (deprecated for strech and after since the -dbgsym package is automatically generated)

: • dev: Library development package (any, same) (alias: de)

: • doc: Documentation package (all, foreign) (alias: do)

: • lib: Library package (any, same) (alias: l)

: • perl: Perl script package (all, foreign) (alias: pl)

: • python: Python script package (all, foreign) (alias: py)

: • python3: Python3 script package (all, foreign) (alias: py3)

: • ruby: Ruby script package (all, foreign) (alias: rb)

: • script: Shell script package (all, foreign) (alias: sh)

The pair values in the parentheses, such as (any, foreign), are the Architecture and Multi-Arch stanza values set in the debian/control file.

In many cases, the debmake command makes good guesses for type from binarypackage. If type is not obvious, type is set to bin. For example, libfoo sets type to lib, and font-bar sets type to data, ...

If the source tree contents do not match settings for type, debmake warns you.

-e [email protected], --email [email protected]

: set e-mail address.
The default is taken from the value of the environment variable $DEBEMAIL.

-f "firstname lastname", --fullname "firstname lastname"

: set the fullname.
The default is taken from the value of the environment variable $DEBFULLNAME.

-i "buildtool", --invoke "buildtool"

: invoke "buildtool" at the end of execution. buildtool may be "dpkg-buildpackage", "debuild", "pdebuild", "pdebuild --pbuilder cowbuilder", etc..
The default is not to execute any program.

-j, --judge

run dpkg-depcheck to judge build dependencies and identify file paths. Log files are in the parent directory.

: • package.build-dep.log: Log file for dpkg-depcheck.

: • package.install.log: Log file recording files in the debian/tmp directory.

-l "license_file,...", --license "license_file,..."

: add formatted license text to the end of the debian/copyright file holding license scan results
The default is add COPYING and LICENSE and license_file needs to list only the additional file names all separated by ",".

-m, --monoarch

: force packages to be non-multiarch.

-o file, --option file

read optional parameters from the file. (This is not for everyday use.)

The file is sourced as the Python3 code at the end of para.py. For example, the package description can be specified by the following file.

para['desc'] = 'program short description'
para['desc_long'] = '''\
 program long description which you wish to include.
 .
 Empty line is space + .
 You keep going on ...
'''

-q, --quitearly

: quit early before creating files in the debian/ directory.

-s, --spec

: use upstream spec (setup.py for Python, etc.) for the package description.

-v, --version

: show version information.

-w "addon,...", --with "addon,..."

add extra arguments to the --with option of the dh(1) command as addon in debian/rules.

The addon values are listed all separated by ",", e.g., "-w "python2,autoreconf"".

For Autotools based packages, setting autoreconf as addon forces to run "autoreconf -i -v -f" for every package building. Otherwise, autotools-dev as addon is used as default.

For Autotools based packages, if they install Python programs, python2 as addon is needed for packages with "compat < 9" since this is non-obvious. But for setup.py based packages, python2 as addon is not needed since this is obvious and it is automatically set for the dh(1) command by the debmake command when it is required.

-x n, --extra n

generate extra configuration files as templates.

The number n changes which configuration templates are generated.

: • -x0: bare minimum configuration files. (default if these files exist already)

: • -x1: ,, + desirable configuration files. (default for new packages)

: • -x2: ,, + interesting configuration files. (recommended for experts, multi binary aware)

: • -x3: ,, + unusual configuration template files with the extra .ex suffix to ease their removal. (recommended for new users) To use these as configuration files, rename their file names into ones without the .ex suffix.

: • -x4: ,, + copyright file examples.

-y, --yes

: "force yes" for all prompts. (without option: "ask [Y/n]"; doubled option: "force no")

-P, --pedantic

: pedantically check auto-generated files.

-T, --tutorial

: output tutorial comment lines in template files.

EXAMPLES

For a well behaving source, you can build a good-for-local-use installable single Debian binary package easily with one command. Test install of such a package generated in this way offers a good alternative to traditional "make install" to the /usr/local directory since the Debian package can be removed cleanly by the "dpkg -P ..." command. Here are some examples of how to build such test packages. (These should work in most cases. If the -d does not work, try -t instead.)

For a typical C program source tree packaged with autoconf/automake:

: • debmake -d -i debuild

For a typical python module source tree:

: • debmake -s -d -b":python" -i debuild

For a typical python module in the package-version.tar.gz archive:

: • debmake -s -a package-version.tar.gz -b":python" -i debuild

For a typical perl module in the Package-version.tar.gz archive:

: • debmake -a Package-version.tar.gz -b":perl" -i debuild

HELPER PACKAGES

Packaging may require installation of some additional specialty helper packages.

: • Python3 program may require the dh-python package.

: • Autotools (Autoconf + Automake) build system may require autotools-dev or dh-autoreconf package.

: • Ruby program may require the gem2deb package.

: • Java program may require the javahelper package.

: • Gnome programs may require the gobject-introspection package.

: • etc.

CAVEAT

debmake is meant to provide template files for the package maintainer to work on. Comment lines started by # contain the tutorial text. You must remove or edit such comment lines before uploading to the Debian archive.

The license extraction and assignment process involves a lot of heuristics, it may fail in some cases. It is highly recommended to use other tools such as licensecheck from the devscripts package in conjunction with debmake.

There are some limitations for what characters may be used as a part of the Debian package. The most notable limitation is the prohibition of uppercase letters in the package name. Here is the summary in the regular expression.

: • Upstream package name (-p): [-+.a-z0-9]{2,}

: • Binary package name (-b): [-+.a-z0-9]{2,}

: • Upstream version (-u): [0-9][-+.:~a-z0-9A-Z]*

: • Debian revision (-r): [0-9][+.~a-z0-9A-Z]*

See the exact definition in Chapter 5 - Control files and their fields of the "Debian Policy Manual".

debmake assumes relatively simple packaging cases. So all programs related to the interpreter are assumed to be "Architecture: all". This is not always true.

DEBUG

Please report bugs to debmake using reportbug.

The character set in the environment variable $DEBUG determines the logging output level.

: • i: print information

: • p: list all global parameters

: • d: list parsed parameters for all binary packages

: • f: input filename for the copyright scan

: • y: year/name split of copyright line

: • s: line scanner for format_state

: • b: content_state scan loop: begin-loop

: • m: content_state scan loop: after regex match

: • e: content_state scan loop: end-loop

: • c: print copyright section text

: • l: print license section text

: • a: print author/translator section text

: • k: sort key for debian/copyright stanza

: • n: scan result of debian/copyright ("debmake -k")

Use this as:

 $ DEBUG=pdfbmeclak debmake ...

See README.developer in the source for more.

AUTHOR

LICENSE

Expat License