DH_GENCONTROL(1)

📦
version 14.5ubuntu1 · 12 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💅 DH_GENCONTROL 💅

okay bestie, so you found yourself in the debhelper manual, specifically the dh_gencontrol page, and honestly? iconic of you. this is the girl who makes your control files happen. let's get into it 💖

✨ NAME ✨

dh_gencontrol — generate and install control file 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

dh_gencontrol [debhelper options] [-- params]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so dh_gencontrol is a debhelper program, and her whole job — her entire main character arc — is generating control files and installing them into the DEBIAN directory with the proper permissions. that's it. that's the vibe. no cap ✨

she's lowkey just a wrapper around dpkg-gencontrol(1), okay? like she calls it once for each package being acted on (plus related dbgsym packages, because family 💜) and she passes in some additional useful flags because she's thoughtful like that.

⚠️ okay but listen, this part is important so pay attention bestie: if you use dh_gencontrol, you must also use dh_builddeb(1) to build the packages. otherwise your build may fail to build, because dh_gencontrol (via dpkg-gencontrol(1)) declares which packages are built. and since debhelper automatically generates dbgsym packages, it sometimes adds additional packages, which will be built by dh_builddeb(1). so like… they're a package deal. literally. 🙈

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -- params — pass params to dpkg-gencontrol(1). yes ma'am, hand them over 🫶
  • -uparams, --dpkg-gencontrol-params=params — another way to pass params to dpkg-gencontrol(1). BUT. she's deprecated bestie 💀 not the vibe anymore. use -- instead. periodt.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

this program is a part of debhelper. she's one of the girls, fr fr 💖

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>

and that's the whole page babes ✨ this came to you from debhelper, version 14.5ubuntu1, dated 2026-09-21 — slay forever, and go build something cute 💅🎀🦋

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