|
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
|
|
|
deb-symbols(5) dpkg suite deb-symbols(5)
deb-symbols - Debian's extended shared library information file
DEBIAN/symbols
The symbol files are shipped in Debian binary packages, and its
format is a subset of the template symbol files used by
dpkg-gensymbols(1) in Debian source packages, see
deb-src-symbols(5).
The format for an extended shared library dependency information
entry in these files is:
library-soname main-dependency-template
[| alternative-dependency-template]
[...]
[* field-name: field-value]
[...]
symbol minimal-version [id-of-dependency-template]
The library-soname is exactly the value of the SONAME field as
exported by objdump(1). A dependency-template is a dependency
where #MINVER# is dynamically replaced either by a version check
like “(>= minimal-version)” or by nothing (if an unversioned
dependency is deemed sufficient).
Each exported symbol (listed as name@version, with version being
“Base” if the library is not versioned) is associated to a
minimal-version of its dependency template (the main dependency
template is always used and will end up being combined with the
dependency template referenced by id-of-dependency-template if
present). The first alternative dependency template is numbered
1, the second one 2, etc. Each column is separated by exactly a
single whitespace.
Each entry for a library can also have some fields of
meta-information. Those fields are stored on lines starting with
an asterisk. Currently, the only valid fields are:
Build-Depends-Package
It indicates the name of the “-dev” package associated to the
library and is used by dpkg-shlibdeps to make sure that the
dependency generated is at least as strict as the
corresponding build dependency (since dpkg 1.14.13).
Build-Depends-Packages
The same as Build-Depends-Package but accepts a
comma-separated list of package names (since dpkg 1.20.0).
This field will override any Build-Depends-Package field
present, and is mostly useful with “-dev” packages and
metapackages depending on these, say for a transition period.
Allow-Internal-Symbol-Groups
It indicates what internal symbol groups should be ignored, as
a whitespace separated list, so that the symbols contained in
those groups get included in the output file (since dpkg
1.20.1). This should only be necessary for toolchain packages
providing those internal symbols. The available groups are
system dependent, for ELF and GNU-based systems these are
aeabi and gomp.
Simple symbols file
libftp.so.3 libftp3 #MINVER#
DefaultNetbuf@Base 3.1-1-6
FtpAccess@Base 3.1-1-6
[...]
Advanced symbols file
libGL.so.1 libgl1
| libgl1-mesa-glx #MINVER#
* Build-Depends-Package: libgl1-mesa-dev
publicGlSymbol@Base 6.3-1
[...]
implementationSpecificSymbol@Base 6.5.2-7 1
[...]
<https://wiki.debian.org/Projects/ImprovedDpkgShlibdeps>,
deb-src-symbols(5), dpkg-shlibdeps(1), dpkg-gensymbols(1).
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
1.22.19-74-gf1ca0 2025-05-18 deb-symbols(5)
Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-gensymbols(1), dpkg-shlibdeps(1), deb(5), deb-shlibs(5), deb-src-symbols(5)