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<h1 class="title"><a id="idm140474523547696"/>dpkg technical manual</h1>
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<div class="author">
<h3 class="author">Tom Lees</h3>
<code class="email"><<a class="email" href="mailto:tom@lpsg.demon.co.uk">tom@lpsg.demon.co.uk</a>></code>
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<p class="releaseinfo">Version 1.4.6</p>
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<p class="copyright">Copyright © 1997 Tom Lees</p>
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<p class="legalnotice-title">
<strong>License Notice</strong>
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<p>
APT and this document are free software; you can redistribute them and/or
modify them under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.
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<p>
For more details, on Debian systems, see the file
/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL for the full license.
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<div class="abstract">
<p class="title">
<strong>Abstract</strong>
</p>
<p>
This document describes the minimum necessary workings for the APT dselect
replacement. It gives an overall specification of what its external interface
must look like for compatibility, and also gives details of some internal
quirks.
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<strong>Table of Contents</strong>
</p>
<dl class="toc">
<dt>
<span class="chapter">
<a href="ch1.html">1. Quick summary of dpkg's external interface</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch1.html#control">1.1. Control files</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch1.html#s1.2">1.2. The dpkg status area</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch1.html#s1.3">1.3. The dpkg library files</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch1.html#s1.4">1.4. The "dpkg" command-line utility</a>
</span>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<span class="chapter">
<a href="ch2.html">2. dpkg-deb and .deb file internals</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch2.html#s2.1">2.1. The .deb archive format</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch2.html#s2.2">2.2. The dpkg-deb command-line</a>
</span>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<span class="chapter">
<a href="ch3.html">3. dpkg internals</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch3.html#updates">3.1. Updates</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch3.html#s3.2">3.2. What happens when dpkg reads the database</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dt>
<span class="section">
<a href="ch3.html#s3.3">3.3. How dpkg compares version numbers</a>
</span>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
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