| .TH deb\-old 5 "2011-08-14" "Debian Project" "Debian" |
| .SH NAME |
| deb\-old \- old style Debian binary package format |
| . |
| .SH SYNOPSIS |
| .IB filename .deb |
| . |
| .SH DESCRIPTION |
| The |
| .B .deb |
| format is the Debian binary package file format. This manual page |
| describes the |
| .B old |
| format, used before Debian 0.93. Please see |
| .BR deb (5) |
| for details of the new format. |
| . |
| .SH FORMAT |
| The file is two lines of format information as ASCII text, followed by |
| two concatenated gzipped ustar files. |
| .PP |
| The first line is the format version number padded to 8 digits, and is |
| .B 0.939000 |
| for all old-format archives. |
| .PP |
| The second line is a decimal string (without leading zeroes) giving |
| the length of the first gzipped tarfile. |
| .PP |
| Each of these lines is terminated with a single newline character. |
| .PP |
| The first tarfile contains the control information, as a series of |
| ordinary files. The file |
| .B control |
| must be present, as it contains the core control information. |
| .PP |
| In some very old archives, the files in the control tarfile may |
| optionally be in a |
| .B DEBIAN |
| subdirectory. In that case, the |
| .B DEBIAN |
| subdirectory will be in the control tarfile too, and the control |
| tarfile will have only files in that directory. Optionally the |
| control tarfile may contain an entry for |
| .RB ` . ', |
| that is, the current directory. |
| .PP |
| The second gzipped tarfile is the filesystem archive, containing |
| pathnames relative to the root directory of the system to be installed |
| on. The pathnames do not have leading slashes. |
| . |
| .SH SEE ALSO |
| .BR deb (5), |
| .BR dpkg\-deb (1), |
| .BR deb\-control (5). |
