Insights in .deb format ( just sharing what I learned )

Hello o/

I have been trying to understand the .deb package format and here is what I have learned about it so far.

first layer is the most simple it's just a basic ar archive and we can extract is using ar x filename.deb command. you will see the following files:

control.tar.xz
data.tar.xz
debian-binary

• debian-binary file specifies the .deb file version which will be 2.0 in most cases.
• control.tar.xz file contains all the the metadata about the package like the dependencies etc.
• data.tar.xz file is the file that actually contains all the provided files by the packages.

source:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deb_(file_format)
• https://radagast.ca/linux/anatomy_of_a_deb_file.html
• https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html