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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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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).
A symbols file must be shipped in the same binary package as the
shared libraries described within. This is to guarantee that the
symbols descriptions match the shared library being described, and
so that the symbols file can be found from the package owning the
shared library.
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.
Supported since dpkg 1.14.13.
Build-Depends-Packages
The same as Build-Depends-Package but accepts a
comma-separated list of package names. 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.20.0.
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. 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.20.1.
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 2026-08-03. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2026-08-01.) 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
1.23.7-216-gff7e9 2026-03-07 deb-symbols(5)
Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-gensymbols(1), dpkg-shlibdeps(1), deb(5), deb-shlibs(5), deb-src-symbols(5)
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HTML rendering created 2026-09-09 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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