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dpkg-scansources(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON 

dpkg-scansources(1)             dpkg suite            dpkg-scansources(1)

NAME         top

       dpkg-scansources - create Sources index files

SYNOPSIS         top

       dpkg-scansources [option...] binary-dir [override-file [path-
       prefix]] > Sources

DESCRIPTION         top

       dpkg-scansources scans the given binary-dir for .dsc files.  These
       are used to create a Debian source index, which is output to
       stdout.

       The override-file, if given, is used to set priorities in the
       resulting index stanzas and to override the maintainer field given
       in the .dsc files.  The file can be compressed (since dpkg
       1.15.5).  See deb-override(5) for the format of this file.

       Note: Since the override file is indexed by binary, not source
       packages, there's a bit of a problem here.  The current
       implementation uses the highest priority of all the binary
       packages produced by a .dsc file for the priority of the source
       package, and the override entry for the first binary package
       listed in the .dsc file to modify maintainer information.  This
       might change.

       The path-prefix, if given, is prepended to the directory field in
       the generated source index.  You generally use this to make the
       directory fields contain the path from the top of the Debian
       archive hierarchy.

       Note: If you want to access the generated Sources file with apt(8)
       you will probably need to compress the file with gzip(1)
       (generating a Sources.gz file).  apt(8) ignores uncompressed
       Sources files except on local access (i.e.  file:// sources).

OPTIONS         top

       -n, --no-sort
           Do not sort the index stanzas.  Normally they are sorted by
           source package name.

       -e, --extra-override file
           Scan file to find supplementary overrides (since dpkg 1.15.4;
           the file can be compressed since dpkg 1.15.5).  See
           deb-extra-override(5) for more information on its format.

       -s, --source-override file
           Use file as the source override file (the file can be
           compressed since dpkg 1.15.5).  The default is the name of the
           override file you specified with .src appended.

           The source override file is in a different format from the
           binary override file.  It contains only two whitespace
           separated fields, the first is the source package name and the
           second is the section.  Blank lines and comment lines are
           ignored in the normal manner.  If a package appears in both
           files the source override takes precedence for setting the
           section.

       --debug
           Turn debugging on.

       --help
           Show the usage message and exit.

       --version
           Show the version and exit.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       DPKG_COLORS
           Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5).  The currently
           accepted values are: auto (default), always and never.

       DPKG_NLS
           If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native
           Language Support, also known as internationalization (or i18n)
           support (since dpkg 1.19.0).  The accepted values are: 0 and 1
           (default).

SEE ALSO         top

       deb-override(5), deb-extra-override(5), dpkg-scanpackages(1).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨git
       clone https://git.dpkg.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2025-08-11.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2025-08-06.)  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

1.22.6-77-g86fe7                2024-03-10            dpkg-scansources(1)

Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-scanpackages(1),  deb-extra-override(5),  deb-override(5)

HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface.

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