Though there is nothing stopping an author who is also
the Debian maintainer from using it for all their
changes, it will have to be renamed if the Debian and
- upstream maintainers become different
- people.
+ upstream maintainers become different people. In such a
+ case, however, it might be better to maintain the
+ package as a non-native package.
</p>
</footnote>.
</p>
<p>
That format is a series of entries like this:
<example>
- <var>package</var> (<var>version</var>) <var>distribution(s)</var>; urgency=<var>urgency</var>
+<var>package</var> (<var>version</var>) <var>distribution(s)</var>; urgency=<var>urgency</var>
- * <var>change details</var>
- <var>more change details</var>
- * <var>even more change details</var>
+ * <var>change details</var>
+ <var>more change details</var>
+ * <var>even more change details</var>
- -- <var>maintainer name and email address</var> <var>date</var>
+ -- <var>maintainer name and email address</var> <var>date</var>
</example>
</p>
<prgn>dpkg</prgn> changelog format (though there is
currently only one useful <var>keyword</var>,
<tt>urgency</tt>).
+ <footnote>
+ <p>
+ Usual urgency values are <tt>low</tt>, <tt>medium</tt>,
+ <tt>high</tt> and <tt>critical</tt>. They have an
+ effect on how quickly a package will be considered for
+ inclusion into the <tt>testing</tt> distribution, and
+ give an indication of the importance of any fixes
+ included in this upload.
+ </p>
+ </footnote>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
- The maintainer name and email address need <em>not</em>
- necessarily be those of the usual package maintainer.
- They should be the details of the person doing
- <em>this</em> version. The information here will be
- copied to the <tt>.changes</tt> file, and then later used
- to send an acknowledgement when the upload has been
- installed.
+ If this upload resolves bugs recorded in the Bug Tracking
+ System (BTS), they may be automatically closed on the
+ inclusion of this package into the Debian archive by
+ including the string: <tt>closes: Bug#<var>nnnnn</var></tt>
+ in the change details.
+ <footnote>
+ <p>
+ To be precise, the string should match the following
+ Perl regular expression:
+ <example>
+<tt>/closes:\s*(?:bug)?\#\s?\d+(?:,\s*(?:bug)?\#\s?\d+)*/i</tt>
+ </example>
+ Then all of the bug numbers listed will be closed by the
+ archive maintenance script (<prgn>katie</prgn>), or in
+ the case of an NMU, marked as fixed.
+ </p>
+ </footnote>
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ The maintainer name and email address used in the changelog
+ should be the details of the person uploading <em>this</em>
+ version. They are <em>not</em> necessarily those of the
+ usual package maintainer. The information here will be
+ copied to the <tt>Changed-By</tt> field in the
+ <tt>.changes</tt> file, and then later used to send an
+ acknowledgement when the upload has been installed.
</p>
<p>
</p>
</footnote>; it should include the time zone specified
numerically, with the time zone name or abbreviation
- optionally present as a comment.
+ optionally present as a comment in parentheses.
</p>
<p>
<p>
When <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>,
<prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> and <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn>
- generate control files they do variable substitutions on
- their output just before writing it. Variable
+ generate control files they perform variable substitutions
+ on their output just before writing it. Variable
substitutions have the form
<tt>${<var>variable-name</var>}</tt>. The optional file
- <tt>debian/substvars</tt> contains variable substitutions
- to be used; variables can also be set directly from
+ <tt>debian/substvars</tt> contains variable substitutions to
+ be used; variables can also be set directly from
<tt>debian/rules</tt> using the <tt>-V</tt> option to the
- source packaging commands, and certain predefined
- variables are available.
+ source packaging commands, and certain predefined variables
+ are also available.
</p>
<p>
- The is usually generated and modified dynamically by
- <tt>debian/rules</tt> targets; in this case it must be
- removed by the <prgn>clean</prgn> target.
+ The <tt>debian/substvars</tt> file is usually generated and
+ modified dynamically by <tt>debian/rules</tt> targets; in
+ this case it must be removed by the <prgn>clean</prgn>
+ target.
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
- <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> adds an entry to this file
- for the <tt>.deb</tt> file that will be created by
- <prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn> from the control file that it
- generates, so for most packages all that needs to be done
- with this file is to delete it in <prgn>clean</prgn>.
+ When <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> is run for a binary
+ package, it adds an entry to <tt>debian/files</tt> for the
+ <tt>.deb</tt> file that will be created when <prgn>dpkg-deb
+ --build</prgn> is run for that binary package. So for most
+ packages all that needs to be done with this file is to
+ delete it in the <prgn>clean</prgn> target.
</p>
<p>
packages, but only when extracting
them.
</p>
- </footnote>
- <footnote>
<p>
Hard links may be permitted at some point in the
future, but would require a fair amount of