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NAME

PKGINFO - Information on ALPM based packages (version 1).

DESCRIPTION

The PKGINFO format is a textual format that describes package metadata. Such files are located at the root of ALPM packages and are named .PKGINFO. They are used e.g. by package managers to evaluate and present the context for a package within its ecosystem. Use-cases include the representation of common metadata and the relation to other packages.

The PKGINFO format exists in multiple versions. This document describes version 1, which is a legacy version and has been introduced with the release of pacman 5.1.0 on 2018-05-28. For the latest specification, refer to PKGINFO.

  General Format

A PKGINFO file consists of a series of lines, each providing information on an aspect of a package. Lines starting with a ‘#’ sign are comments and are always ignored. Leading whitespace is always ignored.

Unless noted otherwise, the information contained in a PKGINFO file is considered to be covered by the set of the 95 printable ASCII characters[1].

  Keywords

Each line encodes information that represents one keyword assignment. All keyword assignments consist of a key from the following list immediately followed by a whitespace, an ‘=’ sign, another whitespace and a value.

By default, exactly one keyword assignment must be present per keyword in a PKGINFO. As exception to this rule, the keywords license, replaces, group, conflict, provides, backup, depend, optdepend, makedepend and checkdepend may be provided zero or more times.

  pkgname

The name of the package. The value is an alpm-package-name (e.g. example).

  pkgbase

The alpm-package-base of the package. The value is an alpm-package-base (e.g. example).

  pkgver

The full version of the package. Note, that this is not to be confused with alpm-pkgver, which only represents a subset of this keyword! The value is an alpm-package-version, either in full or in full with epoch form (e.g. 1.0.0-1 or 1:1.0.0-1, respectively).

  pkgdesc

The description of the package. The value is a UTF-8 string, zero or more characters long (e.g. A project used for something). Package descriptions must have no leading or trailing whitespaces, must contain no whitespace characters except space “ “ and no successive spaces. It is also suggested to be “short” and to not contain the package name (see pkgname).

  url

The URL for the project of the package. The value is a valid URL or an empty string (e.g. https://example.org).

  builddate

The date at which the build of the package started. The value must be numeric and must represent the seconds since the Epoch, aka. ‘Unix time’ (e.g. 1729181726).

  packager

The User ID of the entity that built the package. The value is meant to be used for identity lookups and represents an OpenPGP User ID[2]. As such, the value is a UTF-8-encoded string, that is conventionally composed of a name and an e-mail address, which aligns with the format described in RFC 28223 (e.g.%20%60John%20Doe%20%3Cjohn@example.org%3E%60) .

  size

The size of the (uncompressed and unpacked) package contents in bytes. The value is a non-negative integer representing the absolute size of the contents of the package, with multiple hardlinked files counted only once (e.g. 181849963).

  arch

The architecture of the package (see alpm-architecture for further information). The value must be covered by the set of alphanumeric characters and ‘_’ (e.g. x86_64 or any).

  license

A license that applies for the package. This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value represents a license identifier, which is a string of non-zero length (e.g. GPL). Although no specific restrictions are enforced for the value aside from its length, it is highly recommended to rely on SPDX license expressions (e.g. GPL-3.0-or-later or Apache-2.0 OR MIT). See SPDX License List[4] for further information.

  replaces

Another virtual component or package, that the package replaces upon installation. This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value is an alpm-package-relation of type replacement (e.g. example or example=1.0.0).

  group

An arbitrary string, that denotes a distribution-wide group the package is in. Groups are made use of e.g. by package managers to group packages and allow to bulk install them, or by other software to display information on these related packages. This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value is represented by a UTF-8 string. Although it is possible to use a UTF-8 string, it is highly recommended to rely on the pkgname format for the value instead, as package managers may use group to install an entire group of packages.

  conflict

Another virtual component or package, that the package conflicts with. This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value is an alpm-package-relation of type conflict (e.g. example or example=1.0.0).

  provides

Another virtual component or package, that the package provides. This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value is an alpm-package-relation of type provision (e.g. example or example=1.0.0).

  backup

A relative file path of a file in the package, that denotes a file for the package manager to keep backups for in case it changes or is deleted during a package update action (see pacman ‘.pacnew’ and ‘.pacsave’ files). This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value must be a valid relative Unix file path (e.g. etc/package.conf).

  depend

A run-time dependency of the package (virtual component or package). This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value is an alpm-package-relation of type run-time dependency (e.g. example or example=1.0.0).

  optdepend

An optional dependency of the package (virtual component or package). This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value is an alpm-package-relation of type optional dependency (e.g. example or example: this is a description).

  makedepend

A build time dependency of the package (virtual component or package). This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value is an alpm-package-relation of type build dependency (e.g. example or example=1.0.0).

  checkdepend

A dependency for running tests of the package’s upstream project. This keyword may be assigned zero or more times. The value is an alpm-package-relation of type test dependency (e.g. example or example=1.0.0).

EXAMPLES

    pkgname = example
    pkgbase = example
    pkgver = 1:1.0.0-1
    pkgdesc = A project that does something
    url = https://example.org
    builddate = 1729181726
    packager = John Doe <john@example.org>
    size = 181849963
    arch = any
    license = GPL-3.0-or-later
    license = LGPL-3.0-or-later
    replaces = other-package>0.9.0-3
    group = package-group
    group = other-package-group
    conflict = conflicting-package<1.0.0
    conflict = other-conflicting-package<1.0.0
    provides = some-component
    provides = some-other-component=1:1.0.0-1
    backup = etc/example/config.toml
    backup = etc/example/other-config.txt
    depend = glibc
    depend = gcc-libs
    optdepend = python: for special-python-script.py
    optdepend = ruby: for special-ruby-script.rb
    makedepend = cmake
    makedepend = python-sphinx
    checkdepend = extra-test-tool
    checkdepend = other-extra-test-tool

SEE ALSO

alpm-pkginfo(1), PKGBUILD(5), makepkg.conf(5), alpm-architecture(7), alpm-comparison(7), alpm-package-name(7), alpm-package-relation(7), alpm-package-version(7), alpm-pkgver(7), makepkg(8), pacman(8)

NOTES

1.  printable ASCII characters

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#Printable_characters

2.  OpenPGP User ID

    https://openpgp.dev/book/certificates.html#user-ids

3.  RFC 2822

    https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2822

4.  SPDX License List

    https://spdx.org/licenses/