Bug#105535: debian-policy should not be concerned with the internal structure of a source package
package: debian-policy
version: 3.5.5.0
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C.4 Unpacking a Debian source package without dpkg-source
dpkg-source -x is the recommended way to unpack a Debian source
package. However, if it is not available it is possible to unpack a
Debian source archive as follows:
1. Untar the tarfile, which will create a .orig directory.
2. Rename the .orig directory to package-version.
3. Create the subdirectory debian at the top of the source tree.
4. Apply the diff using patch -p0.
5. Untar the tarfile again if you want a copy of the original source
code alongside the Debianised version.
It is not possible to generate a valid Debian source archive without
using dpkg-source. In particular, attempting to use diff directly to
generate the .diff.gz file will not work.
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Very many(most?) source packages do NOT unpack their .orig.tar.gz to
foo-ver.orig/. Also, the above paragraph does not consider debian-native
packages.
This paragraph also does not allow the internal format of a src pkg to be
changed, which would make a new format more difficult to work with. I would
prefer to see this section removed, tbh.
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