Dpkg::Control::Hash(3)						   libdpkg-perl 					    Dpkg::Control::Hash(3)

NAME

       Dpkg::Control::Hash - parse and manipulate a block of RFC822-like fields

DESCRIPTION

       The Dpkg::Control::Hash object is a hash-like representation of a set of RFC822-like fields. The fields names are case insensitive and are
       always capitalized the same when output (see field_capitalize function in Dpkg::Control::Fields).  The order in which fields have been set
       is remembered and is used to be able to dump back the same content. The output order can also be overridden if needed.

       You can store arbitrary values in the hash, they will always be properly escaped in the output to conform to the syntax of control files.
       This is relevant mainly for multilines values: while the first line is always output unchanged directly after the field name, supplementary
       lines are modified. Empty lines and lines containing only dots are prefixed with " ." (space + dot) while other lines are prefixed with a
       single space.

       During parsing, trailing spaces are stripped on all lines while leading spaces are stripped only on the first line of each field.

FUNCTIONS

       my $c = Dpkg::Control::Hash->new(%opts)
	   Creates a new object with the indicated options. Supported options are:

	   allow_pgp
		   Configures the parser to accept PGP signatures around the control information. Value can be 0 (default) or 1.

	   allow_duplicate
		   Configures the parser to allow duplicate fields in the control information. Value can be 0 (default) or 1.

	   drop_empty
		   Defines if empty fields are dropped during the output. Value can be 0 (default) or 1.

	   name    The user friendly name of the information stored in the object. It might be used in some error messages or warnings. A default
		   name might be set depending on the type.

       $c->set_options($option, %opts)
	   Changes the value of one or more options.

       my $value = $c->get_option($option)
	   Returns the value of the corresponding option.

       $c->load($file)
	   Parse the content of $file. Exits in case of errors. Returns true if some fields have been parsed.

       $c->parse($fh, $description)
	   Parse a control file from the given filehandle. Exits in case of errors.  $description is used to describe the filehandle, ideally it's
	   a filename or a description of where the data comes from. It's used in error messages. Returns true if some fields have been parsed.

       $c->find_custom_field($name)
	   Scan the fields and look for a user specific field whose name matches the following regex: /X[SBC]*-$name/i. Return the name of the
	   field found or undef if nothing has been found.

       $c->get_custom_field($name)
	   Identify a user field and retrieve its value.

       $c->save($filename)
	   Write the string representation of the control information to a file.

       my $str = $c->output()
       "$c"
	   Get a string representation of the control information. The fields are sorted in the order in which they have been read or set except
	   if the order has been overridden with set_output_order().

       $c->output($fh)
	   Print the string representation of the control information to a filehandle.

       $c->set_output_order(@fields)
	   Define the order in which fields will be displayed in the output() method.

       $c->apply_substvars($substvars)
	   Update all fields by replacing the variables references with the corresponding value stored in the Dpkg::Substvars object.

AUTHOR

       Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>.

1.16.0.3							    2012-04-17						    Dpkg::Control::Hash(3)