(debian-policy.info)Source packages as archives

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15.3 Source packages as archives
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As it exists on the FTP site, a Debian source package consists of three
related files.  You must have the right versions of all three to be able
to use them.

Debian source control file - ‘.dsc’

     This file is a control file used by ‘dpkg-source’ to extract a
     source package.  See Note: Debian source control files – .dsc.

Original source archive - ‘package_upstream-version.orig.tar.gz’

     This is a compressed (with ‘gzip -9’) ‘tar’ file containing the
     source code from the upstream authors of the program.

Debian package diff - ‘package_upstream_version-revision.diff.gz’

     This is a unified context diff (‘diff -u’) giving the changes which
     are required to turn the original source into the Debian source.
     These changes may only include editing and creating plain files.
     The permissions of files, the targets of symbolic links and the
     characteristics of special files or pipes may not be changed and no
     files may be removed or renamed.

     All the directories in the diff must exist, except the ‘debian’
     subdirectory of the top of the source tree, which will be created
     by ‘dpkg-source’ if necessary when unpacking.

     The ‘dpkg-source’ program will automatically make the
     ‘debian/rules’ file executable (see below).

If there is no original source code - for example, if the package is
specially prepared for Debian or the Debian maintainer is the same as
the upstream maintainer - the format is slightly different: then there
is no diff, and the tarfile is named ‘package_version.tar.gz’, and
preferably contains a directory named ‘package-version’.