.TH DEBHELPER 1 "" "Debhelper Commands" "Debhelper Commands"
.SH NAME
debhelper \- overview of the debhelper commands
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B dh_*
.I "[-v] [-a] [-i] [--no-act] [-ppackage] [-Npackage] [-Ptmpdir]"
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
Debhelper is a collection of programs that can be used in debian/rules files
to automate common tasks related to building debian binary packages. All the
debhelper commands accept a set of options, and this man page is here to
document those options and to document debhelper as a whole. For additional 
options, and documentation for each individual command, see the commands' own
man pages.
.SH "SHARED DEBHLPER OPTIONS"
.TP
.B \-v, \--verbose
Verbose mode: show all commands that modify the package build directory.
.TP
.B \--no-act
Do not really do anything. If used with -v, the result is that the command
will output a list of what it would have done.
.TP
.B \-a, \--arch
Act on all architecture dependent packages.
.TP
.B \-i, \--indep
Act on all architecture independent packages.
.TP
.B \-ppackage, \--package=package
Act on the package named "package".
.TP
.B \-Npackage, \--no-package=package
Do not act on the specified package even if an -a, -i, or -p option lists
the package as one that should be acted on.
.TP
.B \-Ptmpdir, \--tmpdir=tmpdir
Use "tmpdir" for package build directory. 
.SH NOTES
.TP
.B Multiple binary package support
.RS
If your source package generates more than one binary package, debhelper
programs will default to acting on all binary packages when run. If your
source package happens to generate one architecture dependent package, and
another architecture independent package, this is not the correct behavior,
because you need to generate the architecture dependent packages in the
binary-arch debian/rules target, and the architecture independent packages
in the binary-indep debian/rules target.

To facilitate this, as well as give you more control over which packages
are acted on by debhelper programs, all debhelper programs accept the 
.B -a
,
.B -i
, and 
.B -p
parameters. These parameters are cumulative. If none are given,
debhelper programs default to acting on all packages listed in the control
file.
.P
See
.BR /usr/doc/debhelper/examples/rules.multi
for an example of how to use this.
.RE
.TP
.B Package build directories
.RS
By default, all debhelper programs assume that the temporary directory used
for assembling the tree of files in a package is debian/tmp for the first
package listed in debian/control, and debian/<packagename> for each
additional package.
.P
Sometimes, you might want to use some other temporary directory. This is
supported by the
.B -P
flag. For example, "dh_installdocs -Pdebian/tmp", will use debian/tmp as the
temporary directory. Note that if you use -P, the debhelper programs can only
be acting on a single package at a time. So if you have a package that builds
many binary packages, you will need to use the -p flag to specify which
binary package the debhelper program will act on.
.RE
.TP
.B Other notes
In general, if any debhelper program needs a directory to exist under
debian/, it will create it. I haven't bothered to document this in all the
man pages, but for example, dh_installdeb knows to make debian/tmp/DEBIAN/
before trying to put files there, dh_installmenu knows you need a
debian/tmp/usr/lib/menu/ before installing the menu files, etc.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.I DH_VERBOSE
Enables verbose mode.
.TP
.I DH_NO_ACT
Enables no-act mode.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.TP
.BR /usr/doc/debhelper/README
An introduction to debhelper.
.TP
.BR /usr/doc/debhelper/examples/
A set of example debian/rules files that use debhelper.
.SH AUTHOR
Joey Hess <joeyh@master.debian.org>