HOWTO: Easily modify dependencies of a .deb file

[Loevborg]

Save the following script as "videbcontrol",

chmod +x

it and put it in your path. Then by calling:

videbcontrol foo.deb

you can edit the "Depends:" line. The resulting .deb file is written to foo.modified.deb in the current directory.

#!/bin/bash

if [[ -z "$1" ]]; then
  echo "Syntax: $0 debfile"
  exit 1
fi

DEBFILE="$1"
TMPDIR=`mktemp -d /tmp/deb.XXXXXXXXXX` || exit 1
OUTPUT=`basename "$DEBFILE" .deb`.modfied.deb

if [[ -e "$OUTPUT" ]]; then
  echo "$OUTPUT exists."
  rm -r "$TMPDIR"
  exit 1
fi

dpkg-deb -x "$DEBFILE" "$TMPDIR"
dpkg-deb --control "$DEBFILE" "$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN

if [[ ! -e "$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN/control ]]; then
  echo DEBIAN/control not found.

  rm -r "$TMPDIR"
  exit 1
fi

CONTROL="$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN/control

MOD=`stat -c "%y" "$CONTROL"`
vi "$CONTROL"

if [[ "$MOD" == `stat -c "%y" "$CONTROL"` ]]; then
  echo Not modfied.
else
  echo Building new deb...
  dpkg -b "$TMPDIR" "$OUTPUT"
fi

rm -r "$TMPDIR"

PS: Thanks to http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=110458

[K.Mandla]

Moved to Packaging and Compiling Programs.

[tears.of.angels]

thanks! this is exactly what i've been looking for.

i've been using ruby-ripper (i think i got the deb from getdeb.net) and one of the dependencies is gedit while i'm using medit. changing this allowed me to get rid of gedit!

[motin]

Thanks a million! This made it dead easy to get the debian liblinuxsampler package to install successfully in Ubuntu (where libgig is called libgig6 for some reason).

I modified it slightly to make it easier to use another editor than vi:
Also, I prefer to call it edit-deb-control.sh...

#!/bin/bash

EDITOR=gedit

if [[ -z "$1" ]]; then
  echo "Syntax: $0 debfile"
  exit 1
fi

DEBFILE="$1"
TMPDIR=`mktemp -d /tmp/deb.XXXXXXXXXX` || exit 1
OUTPUT=`basename "$DEBFILE" .deb`.modfied.deb

if [[ -e "$OUTPUT" ]]; then
  echo "$OUTPUT exists."
  rm -r "$TMPDIR"
  exit 1
fi

dpkg-deb -x "$DEBFILE" "$TMPDIR"
dpkg-deb --control "$DEBFILE" "$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN

if [[ ! -e "$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN/control ]]; then
  echo DEBIAN/control not found.

  rm -r "$TMPDIR"
  exit 1
fi

CONTROL="$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN/control

MOD=`stat -c "%y" "$CONTROL"`
$EDITOR "$CONTROL"

if [[ "$MOD" == `stat -c "%y" "$CONTROL"` ]]; then
  echo Not modfied.
else
  echo Building new deb...
  dpkg -b "$TMPDIR" "$OUTPUT"
fi

rm -r "$TMPDIR"

[Pablo12]

This script rocks!! What else can I say, many thanks.

[23dornot23d]

Nice well written script .... I like it ..... ty .....

[fluffnik]

Many thanks!

My version is called "nanodebcontrol"

[Losergamer04]

I just wanted to say thanks!

[Danielaus]

Thanx guys!! Great script!
I just needed it to edit a deb from a ppa with a typo in the dependencies!
YEAH!

I also edited motin version to create the deb file in the current directory and using the name-version from the control file

#!/bin/bash

EDITOR=nano

if [[ -z "$1" ]]; then
  echo "Syntax: $0 debfile"
  exit 1
fi

DEBFILE="$1"
TMPDIR=`mktemp -d /tmp/deb.XXXXXXXXXX` || exit 1
#OUTPUT=`basename "$DEBFILE" .deb`.modfied.deb
OUTPUT="."

#if [[ -e "$OUTPUT" ]]; then
#  echo "$OUTPUT exists."
#  rm -r "$TMPDIR"
#  exit 1
#fi

dpkg-deb -x "$DEBFILE" "$TMPDIR"
dpkg-deb --control "$DEBFILE" "$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN

if [[ ! -e "$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN/control ]]; then
  echo DEBIAN/control not found.

  rm -r "$TMPDIR"
  exit 1
fi

CONTROL="$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN/control

MOD=`stat -c "%y" "$CONTROL"`
$EDITOR "$CONTROL"

if [[ "$MOD" == `stat -c "%y" "$CONTROL"` ]]; then
  echo Not modfied.
else
  echo Building new deb...
  dpkg -b "$TMPDIR" "$OUTPUT"
fi

rm -r "$TMPDIR"

[roobie]

Beautiful! Made my life that much easier!

Nice one! Thanks a lot!