deb-symbols(5)							  dpkg utilities						    deb-symbols(5)

NAME

       deb-symbols - Debian's extended shared library information file

SYNOPSIS

       symbols

DESCRIPTION

       The format for an extended shared library dependency information entry in these files is:

       <library soname> <main dependency template>
       [ | <alternative dependency template> ]
       [ ... ]
       [ * <field-name>: <field value> ]
       [ ... ]
	<symbol> <minimal version>[ <id of dependency template> ]

       The library soname is exactly the value of the SONAME field as exported by objdump(1). A dependency template is a dependency where #MINVER#
       is dynamically replaced either by a version check like "(>= minimal version)" or by nothing (if an unversioned dependency is deemed  suffi-
       cient).

       Each exported symbol (listed as name@version, with version being "Base" if the library is not versioned) is associated to a minimal version
       of its dependency template (the main dependency template is used if id of dependency template is not present). The first alternative depen-
       dency template is numbered 1, the second one 2, etc.

       Each  entry  for a library can also have some fields of meta-information.  Those fields are stored on lines starting with an asterisk. Cur-
       rently, the only valid field is Build-Depends-Package, it indicates the name of the "-dev" package associated to the library and is used by
       dpkg-shlibdeps to make sure that the dependency generated is at least as strict as the corresponding build dependency.

EXAMPLES

   Simple symbols file
       libftp.so.3 libftp3 #MINVER#
	DefaultNetbuf@Base 3.1-1-6
	FtpAccess@Base 3.1-1-6
	[...]

   Advanced symbols file
       libGL.so.1 libgl1
       | libgl1-mesa-glx #MINVER#
       * Build-Depends-Package: libgl1-mesa-dev
	publicGlSymbol@Base 6.3-1
	[...]
	implementationSpecificSymbol@Base 6.5.2-7 1
	[...]

SEE ALSO

       http://wiki.debian.org/Projects/ImprovedDpkgShlibdeps
       dpkg-shlibdeps(1), dpkg-gensymbols(1).

Debian Project							    2007-07-16							    deb-symbols(5)