When appropriate, in cases like these, you can use standard shell wildcard
characters ('?' and '*' and '[..]' character classes) in the files.
+You can also put comments in these files; lines beginning with "#" are
+ignored.
+
=head1 SHARED DEBHELPER OPTIONS
The following command line options are supported by all debhelper programs.
From time to time, major non-backwards-compatible changes need to be made
to debhelper, to keep it clean and well-designed as needs change and its
author gains more experience. To prevent such major changes from breaking
-existing packages, the concept of debhelper compatability levels was
-introduced. You tell debhelper which compatability level it should use, and
+existing packages, the concept of debhelper compatibility levels was
+introduced. You tell debhelper which compatibility level it should use, and
it modifies its behavior in various ways.
-You tell debhelper what compatability level to use by writing a number to
-debian/compat. For example, to turn on V4 mode:
+Tell debhelper what compatibility level to use by writing a number to
+debian/compat. For example, to turn on V5 mode:
+
+ % echo 5 > debian/compat
- % echo 4 > debian/compat
+Unless otherwise indicated, all debhelper documentation assumes that you
+are using the most recent compatability level, and in most cases does not
+indicate if the behavior is different in an earlier compatability level, so
+if you are not using the most recent compatability level, you're advised to
+read below for notes about what is different in earlier compatability
+levels.
-These are the available compatablity levels:
+These are the available compatibility levels:
=over 4
=item V1
-This is the original debhelper compatability level, and so it is the default
+This is the original debhelper compatibility level, and so it is the default
one. In this mode, debhelper will use debian/tmp as the package tree
directory for the first binary package listed in the control file, while using
debian/<package> for all other packages listed in the control file.
+
This mode is deprecated.
=item V2
In this mode, debhelper will consistently use debian/<package>
as the package tree directory for every package that is built.
+This mode is deprecated.
+
=item V3
This mode works like V2, with the following additions:
=back
+This mode is deprecated.
+
=item V4
-This is the reccommended mode of operation. It does everything V3 does,
-plus:
+Changes from V3 are:
=over 8
=item -
dh_makeshlibs -V will not include the debian part of the version number in
-the generated dependancy line in the shlibs file.
+the generated dependency line in the shlibs file.
=item -
You are encouraged to put the new ${misc:Depends} into debian/control to
-suppliment the ${shlibs:Depends} field.
+supplement the ${shlibs:Depends} field.
=item -
=back
+=item V5
+
+This is the recommended mode of operation. It does everything V4 does,
+plus:
+
+=over 8
+
+=item -
+
+Comments are ignored in debhelper config files.
+
+=item -
+
+dh_strip --dbg-package now specifies the name of a package to put debugging
+symbols in, not the packages to take the symbols from.
+
+=item -
+
+dh_installdocs skips installing empty files.
+
+=back
+
=back
=head2 Doc directory symlinks
debian/, it will create it. I haven't bothered to document this in all the
man pages, but for example, dh_installdeb knows to make debian/<package>/DEBIAN/
before trying to put files there, dh_installmenu knows you need a
-debian/<package>/usr/lib/menu/ before installing the menu files, etc.
+debian/<package>/usr/share/menu/ before installing the menu files, etc.
Once your package uses debhelper to build, be sure to add
debhelper to your Build-Depends line in debian/control. You should
-build-depend on a verson of debhelper equal to (or greater than) the
-debhelper compatability level your package uses. So if your package used
-compatability level 4:
+build-depend on a version of debhelper equal to (or greater than) the
+debhelper compatibility level your package uses. So if your package used
+compatibility level 5:
- Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 4)
+ Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5)
=head1 ENVIRONMENT