deb-split(5)							      Debian							      deb-split(5)

NAME

       deb-split - Debian multi-part binary package format

SYNOPSIS

       filename.deb

DESCRIPTION

       The multi-part .deb format is used to split big packages into smaller pieces to ease transport in small media.

FORMAT

       The file is an ar archive with a magic value of !<arch>.  The file names might contain a trailing slash (since dpkg 1.15.6).

       The first member is named debian-split and contains a series of lines, separated by newlines. Currently seven lines are present.  The first
       is the format version number, 2.1 at the time this manual page was written. The second is the package name. The third is the  package  ver-
       sion. The fourth is the md5sum of the package.  The fifth is the total size of the package. The sixth is the maximum part size. The seventh
       is the current part number, followed by a slash and the total amount of parts (as in '1/10').

       Programs which read multi-part archives should be prepared for additional lines to be present, and should ignore these if this is the case.

       If the version number has changed, an incompatible change has been made and the program should stop. If it has not, then the program should
       be able to safely continue, unless it encounters an unexpected member in the archive (except at the end), as described below.

       The second, last required member is named data.N, where N denotes the part number. It contains the raw part data.

       These  members  must occur in this exact order. Current implementations should ignore any additional members after data.N.  Further members
       may be defined in the future, and (if possible) will be placed after these two.

SEE ALSO

       deb(5), dpkg-split(1).

Debian Project							    2010-01-28							      deb-split(5)