5.6.16. Format

In .changes files, this field declares the format version of that file. The syntax of the field value is the same as that of a package version number except that no epoch or Debian revision is allowed. The format described in this document is 1.8.

In .dsc Debian source control files, this field declares the format of the source package. The field value is used by programs acting on a source package to interpret the list of files in the source package and determine how to unpack it. The syntax of the field value is a numeric major revision, a period, a numeric minor revision, and then an optional subtype after whitespace, which if specified is an alphanumeric word in parentheses. The subtype is optional in the syntax but may be mandatory for particular source format revisions. 11