GIT-DEBORIG(1)

📦
version 2.25.15 · 11 versions
, in debian trixie

💅 git-deborig — the manual, but make it make sense

okay bestie, so this is git-deborig from the Debian Utilities crew, and no cap, it's the little script that could. Let's get into it ✨

🎀 NAME 🎀

git-deborig — it literally tries to produce a Debian orig.tar for you using git-archive(1). That's the whole job. She's focused. She's iconic. She does one thing and she slays at it 💖

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

git deborig [--force|-f] [--just-print|--just-print-tag-names]
[--version=VERSION] [COMMITTISH]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the vibe: git-deborig tries to produce the orig.tar you need for your upload by calling git-archive(1) on an existing git tag or branch head. That's it, that's the whole main character moment 🫶

It was written with the dgit-maint-merge(7) workflow in mind — like, that's its home turf — but lowkey it can be used with other workflows too. She's flexible like that 💅

git-deborig will try several common tag names, bestie. And if that fails? Or if more than one of those common tags are present (chaos, honestly 😭)? Then you can just specify the tag or branch head to archive on the command line — that's the COMMITTISH up there in the synopsis. You're in charge 👑

Also, super important: git-deborig will override gitattributes(5) that would cause the contents of the tarball generated by git-archive(1) to not be identical with the commitish archived. The two attributes it's overriding are export-subst and export-ignore. Like, not it trying to change your tarball behind your back, we don't do that here 🙈

And one more thing — git-deborig should be invoked from the root of the git repository, which should contain debian/changelog. Root of the repo, got it? Not some random subdirectory, bestie. ✨

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -f, --force — overwrite any existing orig.tar in the parent directory. Like, yes, we're doing this, the old one is getting replaced 🗑️
  • --just-print — instead of actually invoking git-archive(1), it outputs information about how it would be invoked. Also, heads up: it ignores --force. 💀
ok so real talk — running the git-archive(1) invocation that gets outputted with this option may not produce the same output. Why? Because git-deborig takes care to disable git attributes otherwise heeded by git-archive(1), as detailed up above. So don't be surprised, it's giving "trust me bro" but with a legit reason 🧚
  • --just-print-tag-names — instead of actually invoking git-archive(1), or even checking which tags exist (she's not even looking 👀), print the tag names we would consider for the upstream version number in the first entry in the Debian changelog, or the one supplied with --version.
  • --version=VERSION — instead of reading the new upstream version from the first entry in the Debian changelog, just use VERSION. You tell her the number, she uses the number. Simple as that 🍓

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

go read those too, iykyk 📚

👑 AUTHOR 👑

git-deborig was written by Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name>. absolute legend, fr fr 🌈

Debian Utilities · 2025-08-15 · that's the source/version and date bestie, so if you're citing this page in your essay, there you go 🎀 mwah, go archive something pretty 💖✨

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