DEVSCRIPTS.CONF(5)

💖 devscripts.conf — the config file for the devscripts package, bestie 💖

okay so this is the devscripts.conf(5) manual page, aka the file-formats girlie that explains how to configure devscripts. manual section 5, file formats, we love her 💅

✨ NAME ✨

devscripts.conf — the configuration file for the devscripts package 🎀

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So the devscripts package is literally a whole collection of scripts that are genuinely useful for Debian developers and honestly anyone else who wants to build Debian packages 🫶. A bunch of those scripts have options that you can configure system-wide or per-user, which is iconic of them ngl.

Every script in the devscripts package that pulls values from these configuration files spells out exactly which settings it recognises in its own manpage. (Want the full list of scripts? Either peek at /usr/share/doc/devscripts/README.gz or just run dpkg -L devscripts | grep /usr/bin and vibe with the output ✨)

There are two configuration files, periodt:

• /etc/devscripts.conf — for system-wide defaults 👑
• ~/.devscripts — for per-user settings 🦋

They're written with bash(1) syntax, BUT — and this is important — they should only ever contain comments and simple variable assignments. That's it. No cleverness. Both of them get sourced (if they're actually there) by many of the devscripts scripts.

Variables that map to simple switches should have one of the values yes and no. Any other setting is regarded as equivalent to the default setting — so don't try to be cute with it 🙈

All variable names are written in UPPERCASE, and they start with the script name. Package-wide variables begin with "DEVSCRIPTS", and those are listed below, plus in the relevant manpages 💜

Want a list of every available options variable along with their default settings? Go look at the example configuration file /usr/share/doc/devscripts/devscripts.conf.ex 🌈. That file gets copied to /etc/devscripts.conf when the devscripts package is first installed. And when you upgrade the package, info about configuration options that were introduced in newer versions gets appended to /etc/devscripts.conf — so she grows with you 🧚

And here's the cheat code: every script that reads the configuration files can be forced to ignore them completely by using --no-conf as the first command-line option. First. Not second. First. 😤

🎀 PACKAGE-WIDE VARIABLES 🎀

The package-wide variables that are currently recognised are:

• DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL, DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX — these two control the scripts that change directory to go find a debian/changelog file or suchlike, plus some other miscellaneous cases. The whole point is to prevent unwanted — and honestly possibly dangerous — behaviour, so these variables control when actions will be performed. The scripts currently making use of these variables are: debc, debchange/dch, debclean, debi, debrelease, debuild and uscan — but lowkey this list may change with time (and the maintainer may not remember to update this manpage 💀). Please check the manpages of the individual scripts for the details of the specific behaviour for each script, iykyk.

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

devscripts(1) and /usr/share/doc/devscripts/README.gz ✨

👑 AUTHOR 👑

This manpage was written for the devscripts package by the package maintainer Julian Gilbey <jdg@debian.org> 💖

and that's a wrap, bestie!! 💅✨ this whole thing lives in the Debian manual, under Debian Utilities, and it's DEVSCRIPTS.CONF(5) — go forth and configure responsibly, mwah 🎀🦋💜