dpkg/doc/deb-old.5

.\" Hey, Emacs!  This is an -*- nroff -*- source file.
.\" Author: Raul Miller, Ian Jackson
.TH DEB-OLD 5  "1st July 1996" "Debian Project" "Debian GNU/Linux"
.SH NAME 
deb-old - Debian GNU/Linux binary package old style format
.SH SYNOPSIS
.IB filename .deb
.SH DESCRIPTION
Old style Debian binary package format.

The
.B .deb
format is the Debian binary package file format.  The format has
changed since Debian 0.93 and the new format is being phased in.

The old format is described here.  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.

The first line is the format version number padded to 8 digits, and is
.B 0.939000
for all old-format archives.

The second line is a decimal string (without leading zeroes) giving
the length of the first gzipped tarfile.

Each of these lines is terminated with a single newline character.

The first tarfile contains the control information (see the
.IR "dpkg Programmer's manual" )
as a series of ordinary files.  The file
.B control
must be present, and contains the core control information.  The files
in the control tarfile may optionally be in a
.B DEBIAN
subdirectory in some very old archives - in this 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.

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 deb\-control (5),
.IR "dpkg Programmers' manual" ,
.BR dpkg\-deb (8)