1 # dpkg manual page - deb-split(5)
3 # Copyright © 2009-2012 Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
5 # This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
6 # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
7 # the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
8 # (at your option) any later version.
10 # This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
11 # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
12 # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
13 # GNU General Public License for more details.
15 # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
16 # along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
22 deb-split - Debian multi-part binary package format
30 The multi-part B<.deb> format is used to split big packages into smaller
31 pieces to ease transport in small media.
35 The file is an B<ar> archive with a magic value of B<!E<lt>archE<gt>>.
36 The file names might contain a trailing slash (since dpkg 1.15.6).
38 The first member is named B<debian-split> and contains a series
39 of lines, separated by newlines.
40 Currently eight lines are present:
46 The format version number, B<2.1> at the time this manual page was
59 The md5sum of the package.
63 The total size of the package.
67 The maximum part size.
71 The current part number, followed by a slash and the total amount of
76 The package architecture (since dpkg 1.16.1).
80 Programs which read multi-part archives should be prepared for the minor
81 format version number to be increased and additional lines to be present,
82 and should ignore these if this is the case.
84 If the major format version number has changed, an incompatible change has
85 been made and the program should stop.
86 If it has not, then the program should
87 be able to safely continue, unless it encounters an unexpected member
88 in the archive (except at the end), as described below.
90 The second, last required member is named B<data.>I<N>, where I<N>
91 denotes the part number.
92 It contains the raw part data.
94 These members must occur in this exact order.
95 Current implementations
96 should ignore any additional members after B<data.>I<N>.
97 Further members may be defined in the future, and (if possible) will be
98 placed after these two.