(debian-policy.info)The main control information file control

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14.3 The main control information file: ‘control’
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The most important control information file used by ‘dpkg’ when it
installs a package is ‘control’.  It contains all the package’s “vital
statistics”.

The binary package control files of packages built from Debian sources
are made by a special tool, ‘dpkg-gencontrol’, which reads
‘debian/control’ and ‘debian/changelog’ to find the information it
needs.  See Note: Source packages (from old Packaging Manual). for
more details.

The fields in binary package control files are listed in Note: Binary
package control files – DEBIAN/control.

A description of the syntax of control files and the purpose of the
fields is available in Note: Control files and their fields.