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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FILES | OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | NOTES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COLOPHON |
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DH_INSTALLDOCS(1) Debhelper DH_INSTALLDOCS(1)
dh_installdocs - install documentation into package build
directories
dh_installdocs [debhelper options] [-A] [-Xitem] [file ...]
dh_installdocs is a debhelper program that is responsible for
installing documentation into usr/share/doc/package in package
build directories.
In compat 10 and earlier, dh_install(1) may be a better tool for
handling the upstream documentation, when upstream's own build
system installs all the desired documentation correctly. In this
case, dh_installdocs is still useful for installing packaging
related documentation (e.g. the debian/copyright file).
From debhelper compatibility level 11 on, dh_install will fall
back to looking in debian/tmp for files, if it does not find them
in the current directory (or wherever you've told it to look using
--sourcedir).
In compat 11 and later, dh_installdocs offers many of the features
that dh_install(1) also has. Furthermore, dh_installdocs also
supports the nodoc build profile to exclude documentation
(regardless of compat level).
debian/package.docs
List documentation files to be installed into package.
Supports substitution variables in compat 13 and later as
documented in debhelper(7).
debian/copyright
The copyright file is installed into all packages, unless a
more specific copyright file is available.
debian/package.copyright
debian/package.README.Debian
debian/package.TODO
Each of these files is automatically installed if present for
a package.
debian/README.Debian
debian/TODO
These files are installed into the first binary package listed
in debian/control.
Note that README.debian files are also installed as
README.Debian, and TODO files will be installed as TODO.Debian
in non-native packages.
debian/package.doc-base
Installed as doc-base control files. Note that the doc-id will
be determined from the Document: entry in the doc-base control
file in question. In the event that multiple doc-base files in
a single source package share the same doc-id, they will be
installed to usr/share/doc-base/package instead of
usr/share/doc-base/doc-id.
debian/package.doc-base.*
If your package needs to register more than one document, you
need multiple doc-base files, and can name them like this. In
the event that multiple doc-base files of this style in a
single source package share the same doc-id, they will be
installed to usr/share/doc-base/package-* instead of
usr/share/doc-base/doc-id.
Please be aware that this deduplication is currently done in
memory only, so for now it requires dh_installdocs to be
called no more than once during the package build. Calling
dh_installdocs -ppackage in combination with using
debian/package.doc-base.* files can lead to uninstallable
packages. See <https://bugs.debian.org/980903> for details.
-A, --all
Install all files specified by command line parameters in ALL
packages acted on.
-Xitem, --exclude=item
Exclude files that contain item anywhere in their filename
from being installed. Note that this includes doc-base files.
--sourcedir=dir
Look in the specified directory for files to be installed.
This option requires compat 11 or later (it is silently
ignored in compat 10 or earlier).
Note that this is not the same as the --sourcedirectory option
used by the dh_auto_* commands. You rarely need to use this
option, since dh_installman automatically looks for files in
debian/tmp in debhelper compatibility level 11 and above.
--doc-main-package=main-package
Set the main package for a documentation package. This is
used to install the documentation of the documentation package
in /usr/share/doc/main-package as recommended by the Debian
policy manual 3.9.7 in §12.3.
In compat 11 (or later), this option is only useful if
debhelper's auto-detection of the main package is wrong. The
option can also be used to silence a warning from debhelper
when the auto-detection fails but the default happens to be
correct.
This option cannot be used when dh_installdocs is instructed
to act on multiple packages. If you need this option, you
will generally need to combine it with -p to ensure exactly
one package is acted on.
Please keep in mind that some documentation (the copyright
file, README.Debian, etc.) will be unaffected by this option.
--link-doc=package
Make the documentation directory of all packages acted on be a
symlink to the documentation directory of package. This has no
effect when acting on package itself, or if the documentation
directory to be created already exists when dh_installdocs is
run. To comply with policy, package must be a binary package
that comes from the same source package.
debhelper will try to avoid installing files into linked
documentation directories that would cause conflicts with the
linked package. The -A option will have no effect on packages
with linked documentation directories, and copyright,
changelog, README.Debian, and TODO files will not be
installed.
(An older method to accomplish the same thing, which is still
supported, is to make the documentation directory of a package
be a dangling symlink, before calling dh_installdocs.)
Please note that this option only applies to the documentation
directory for the package itself. When the package ships
documentation for another package (e.g. see
--doc-main-package), it will not use a symlink for the
documentation of the other package.
CAVEAT 1: If a previous version of the package was built
without this option and is now built with it (or vice-versa),
it requires a "dir to symlink" (or "symlink to dir")
migration. Since debhelper has no knowledge of previous
versions, you have to enable this migration itself.
This can be done by providing a "debian/package.maintscript"
file and using dh_installdeb(1) to provide the relevant
maintainer script snippets.
CAVEAT 2: The use of --link-doc should only be done when the
packages have same "architecture" type. A link from an
architecture independent package to an architecture dependent
package (or vice versa) will not work. Since compat 10,
debhelper will actively reject unsupported combinations.
file ...
Install these files as documentation into the first package
acted on. (Or in all packages if -A is specified).
This is an example of a debian/package.docs file:
README
TODO
debian/notes-for-maintainers.txt
docs/manual.txt
docs/manual.pdf
docs/manual-html/
Note that dh_installdocs will happily copy entire directory
hierarchies if you ask it to (similar to cp -a). If it is asked to
install a directory, it will install the complete contents of the
directory.
debhelper(7)
This program is a part of debhelper.
Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>
This page is part of the debhelper (helper programs for
debian/rules) project. Information about the project can be found
at [unknown -- if you know, please contact man-pages@man7.org] If
you have a bug report for this manual page, send it to
submit@bugs.debian.org. This page was obtained from the project's
upstream Git repository
⟨https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debhelper.git⟩ on 2025-08-11.
(At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
in the repository was 2025-08-10.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
13.23 2025-01-02 DH_INSTALLDOCS(1)
Pages that refer to this page: dh_assistant(1), debhelper(7)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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