deb-email(7)

💌 deb-email(7): the Debian package email address format ✨

okay bestie, welcome to deb-email(7) — the manual for the Debian package email address format. Not me getting emotionally invested in metadata email addresses, but honestly? It’s giving essential package energy. 💅

💖 NAME

deb-email — Debian package email address format.

✨ SYNOPSIS

Näme "quoted, text" S. Surname <näme@exâmple.org>

🫶 DESCRIPTION

Okay so these are the email addresses used for Debian package metadata in binary and source packages. The shape is: a name, followed by at least one space, and then an email address. That’s the whole format. 🦋

The name is composed of one or more parts that are either quoted (") or non-quoted. These parts can contain any UTF-8 character except for angle brackets (<>), double quotes ("), and control characters. A comma (,) is only allowed inside double quoted parts. No cap. 🎀

The email address is contained inside angle brackets (<>), and it’s composed of a local part separated by an at sign (@) followed by the domain part. 💌

Both local and domain parts can contain any UTF-8 character except for angle brackets (<>), at sign (@), double quotes ("), space ( ), and control characters.

⚠️ note: a domain part with a single label is allowed but will emit a warning, as those domains are either for local hosts, or a TLD which are not supposed to receive mail.

🌸 note: a domain part is expected to be encoded in UTF-8, and not in IDNA/Punycode, for readability and general handling reasons.

Multiple addresses must be separated with a comma. That part is literally non-negotiable. 💅

That’s the whole vibe check, bestie! 🦋 No cap, those are all the rules for deb-email addresses. 💖

mwah 💋 this deb-email(7) page is brought to you by the dpkg suite, version 1.23.11-dirty, dated 2026-09-09.