Ubuntu Wiki

This page is designed to collect information about the Debian X-Vcs-* debian/control fields, used to help developers locate the version control system used for a given package.

As discussed, an effort should be made to add these fields to Ubuntu packages.

Details, copied from the most recent patch to the Debian Developers Reference:

XS-Vcs-Browser

Value of this field should be a http:// URL pointing to a web-browsable copy of the Version Control System repository used to maintain the given package, if available.

The information is meant to be useful for the final user, willing to browse the latest work done on the package (e.g. when looking for the patch fixing a bug tagged as pending in the bug tracking system).

XS-Vcs-*

Value of this field should be a string identifying unequivocally the location of the Version Control System repository used to maintain the given package, if available. * identify the Version Control System; currently the following systems are supported by the package tracking system:

• arch

• bzr (Bazaar)

• cvs

• darcs

• git

• hg (Mercurial)

• mtn (Monotone)

• svn (Subversion)

It is allowed to specify different VCS fields for the same package: they will all be shown in the PTS web interface.

The information is meant to be useful for a user knowledgeable in the given Version Control System and willing to build the current version of a package from the VCS sources. Other uses of this information might include automatic building of the latest VCS version of the given package. To this end the location pointed to by the field should better be version agnostic and point to the main branch (for VCSs supporting such a concept). Also, the location pointed to should be accessible to the final user; fulfilling this requirement might imply pointing to an anonymous access of the repository instead of pointing to an SSH-accessible version of the same.

In the following example, an instance of the field for a Subversion repository of the vim package is shown. Note how the URL is in the svn:// scheme (instead of svn+ssh://) and how it points to the trunk/ branch. The use of the XS-Vcs-Browser field described above is also shown.

Source: vim
Section: editors
Priority: optional
...
XS-Vcs-Svn: svn://svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-vim/trunk/packages/vim
XS-Vcs-Browser: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-vim/trunk/packages/vim

Vcs-* in Ubuntu merges from Debian

Vcs-* fields inherited from Debian often no longer make sense in packages that have an Ubuntu delta, unless the VCS to which it refers is being used for Ubuntu also. Our standard is to prefix this with XS-Vcs-Debian-.