DH_PUREDATA_SUBSTVAR(1)

💖 DH_PUREDATA_SUBSTVAR 💖

okay bestie, so this is dh_puredata_substvar(1) — section 1 of the dh-puredata manual, and it's literally the little helper that makes packaging Pure Data externals not be a whole thing. sit down, grab a boba, we're doing this 🌸

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✨ NAME ✨

dh_puredata_substvar — generate substitution variables for a Pd external package 🎀

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🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

dh_puredata_substvar [debhelper options]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

dh_puredata_substvar generates the substitution variables that help you package Pd-externals for Debian (and derivatives, we love a spin-off 💜).

🦋 Substitution variables 🦋

• "${puredata:Depends}" — typically this is "puredata-core" or "puredata". and if your binary package can be used by a Pd64 runtime, it will also contain "puredata64-core". two for one, iconic ✨
• "${puredata:Recommends}" — yes queen, another one
• "${puredata:Suggests}" — she's here too
• "${puredata:Provides}" — and if your binary package "pd-foo" can be used by a Pd64 runtime, this will contain "pd64-foo". the glow-up is real 💅

🫶 so these three are grouped together in the source and the "Pd64 runtime" rule applies to the Provides one — that's exactly what the original says, no cap.

• "${puredata:Version}" — the Pd version (actually the version of the 'puredata-dev' binary package) that this package was built against. like, the receipts of what you compiled with, fr fr.

added in version 3.3. ⭐

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👑 PACKAGE VERSION 👑

• X-PureData-MinimumVersion — if a package needs a newer version of Pure Data, it can just declare that by adding "X-PureData-MinimumVersion: <version>" to the respective binary package stanza. main character move, honestly.

"version" must be a valid version string, which can be used in a package relationship. no vibes-based versions, bestie, it has to be legit 😭

added in version 3.3. ⭐

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

• debhelper(7)
• dh(1)

this program is meant to be used together with debhelper, for Debian packages derived from Pd externals packages. the recommended way to turn it on is adding the "dh-sequence-puredata" virtual package to "Build-Depends", "Build-Depends-Arch" or "Build-Depends-Indep". and that is equivalent to adding "dh-puredata" to that same field and adding "--with=puredata" to the dh sequencer in debian/rules — except that only -arch/-indep/profiled builds are affected. also it's slightly more simple in the most common case, which is the whole point 🫶

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

IOhannes m zmölnig <umlaeute@debian.org> — legend behaviour 👑

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okay that's the whole page, you ate that 🍓 go forth and package your Pd externals, bestie. this was version 3.3.0, dated 2026-05-18, from the dh-puredata manual — mwah, periodt 💖✨