debi

SYNOPSIS
       debi [options] [changes file] [package ...]

DESCRIPTION
       debi  figures out the current version of a package and installs it.  If
       a .changes file is specified on the command line, the filename must end
       with .changes, as this is how the program distinguishes it from package
       names.  If not, then debi has to be called from within the source  code
       directory  tree.  In this case, it will look for the .changes file cor-
       responding to the current package version (by determining the name  and
       version number from the changelog, and the architecture in the same way
       as dpkg-buildpackage(1) does).  It then runs debpkg -i  on  every  .deb
       archive  listed in the .changes file to install them, assuming that all
       of the .deb archives live in the same directory as the  .changes  file.
       Note  that  you  probably  don't want to run this program on a .changes
       file relating to a different  architecture  after  cross-compiling  the
       package!

       If  a  list  of  packages is given on the command line, then only those
       debs with names in this list of packages will be installed.

       Since installing a package requires root privileges, debi calls  debpkg
       rather  than  dpkg  directly.   Thus  debi will only be useful if it is
       either being run as root or debpkg can be run as root.   See  debpkg(1)
       for more details.

Directory name checking
       In  common  with  several other scripts in the devscripts package, debi
       will climb the directory tree until it finds a  debian/changelog  file.
       As  a safeguard against stray files causing potential problems, it will
       examine  the  name  of  the  parent  directory  once   it   finds   the
       debian/changelog file, and check that the directory name corresponds to
       the package name.  Precisely how it does this is controlled by two con-
       figuration    file    variables    DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL   and
       DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX, and  their  corresponding  command-line
       options --check-dirname-level and --check-dirname-regex.

       DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL can take the following values:

       0      Never check the directory name.

       1      Only check the directory name if we have had to change directory
              in our search for debian/changelog.  This is the default  behav-
              iour.

       2      Always check the directory name.

       The  directory name is checked by testing whether the current directory
       name (as determined by pwd(1)) matches the regex given by the  configu-
       ration  file  option  DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX  or by the command
       line option --check-dirname-regex regex.  Here regex is  a  Perl  regex
       (see  perlre(3perl)),  which  will be anchored at the beginning and the
       end.  If regex contains a '/', then it must match  the  full  directory

       --debs-dir DIR
              Look for the .changes and .deb files in directory DIR instead of
              the  parent  of  the source directory.  This should either be an
              absolute path or relative to the top of the source directory.

       --upgrade
              Only upgrade packages already installed on  the  system,  rather
              than  installing all packages listed in the .changes file.  Use-
              ful for multi-binary packages when you don't want  to  have  all
              the binaries installed at once.

       --check-dirname-level N
              See  the above section "Directory name checking" for an explana-
              tion of this option.

       --check-dirname-regex regex
              See the above section "Directory name checking" for an  explana-
              tion of this option.

       --no-conf, --noconf
              Do  not  read any configuration files.  This can only be used as
              the first option given on the command-line.

       --help, --version
              Show help message and version information respectively.

CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
       The two configuration files /etc/devscripts.conf and ~/.devscripts  are
       sourced  in  that  order  to set configuration variables.  Command line
       options can be used to override configuration file settings.   Environ-
       ment  variable  settings  are  ignored for this purpose.  The currently
       recognised variables are:

       DEBRELEASE_DEBS_DIR
              This specifies the directory in which to look for  the  .changes
              and  .deb  files,  and is either an absolute path or relative to
              the top of the source tree.  This corresponds to the  --debs-dir
              command line option.  This directive could be used, for example,
              if you always use pbuilder or  svn-buildpackage  to  build  your
              packages.   Note  that it also affects debrelease(1) in the same
              way, hence the strange name of the option.

       DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL, DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX
              See the above section "Directory name checking" for an  explana-
              tion  of these variables.  Note that these are package-wide con-
              figuration variables, and will therefore affect  all  devscripts
              scripts  which  check their value, as described in their respec-
              tive manpages and in devscripts.conf(5).

SEE ALSO
       debpkg(1) and devscripts.conf(5).

AUTHOR