deb-triggers(5)                           dpkg utilities                          deb-triggers(5)



NAME
       deb-triggers - package triggers

SYNOPSIS
       triggers

DESCRIPTION
       A package declares its relationship to some trigger(s) by including a triggers file in its
       control archive (i.e. DEBIAN/triggers during package creation).

       This file contains directives, one per line. Leading and trailing  whitespace  and  every‐
       thing after the first # on any line will be trimmed, and empty lines will be ignored.

       The trigger control directives currently supported are:

            interest trigger-name

            interest-await trigger-name

            interest-noawait trigger-name

            Specifies  that the package is interested in the named trigger. All triggers in which
            a package is interested must be listed using this directive in the  triggers  control
            file.  The "noawait" variant does not put the triggering packages in triggers-awaited
            state. This should be used when the functionality provided by the trigger is not cru‐
            cial.

            activate trigger-name

            activate-await trigger-name

            activate-noawait trigger-name

            Arranges  that  changes  to this package's state will activate the specified trigger.
            The trigger will be activated at the start of the following operations: unpack,  con‐
            figure, remove (including for the benefit of a conflicting package), purge and decon‐
            figure.  The "noawait"  variant  does  not  put  the  triggering  packages  in  trig‐
            gers-awaited  state. This should be used when the functionality provided by the trig‐
            ger is not crucial.

            If this package disappears during the unpacking of another package the  trigger  will
            be  activated  when the disappearance is noted towards the end of the unpack. Trigger
            processing, and transition from triggers-awaited to installed, does not cause activa‐
            tions.  In the case of unpack, triggers mentioned in both the old and new versions of
            the package will be activated.

       Unknown directives are an error which will prevent installation of the package.

       The "-noawait" variants should always be favored when possible since  triggering  packages
       are  not  put  in  triggers-awaited  state  and can thus be immediately configured without
       requiring the processing of the trigger.  If the triggering packages are  dependencies  of
       other  upgraded packages, it will avoid an early trigger processing run and make it possi‐
       ble to run the trigger only once as one of the last steps of the upgrade.

       The "-noawait" variants are only supported since dpkg 1.16.1, and will lead to  errors  if
       used  with  an older dpkg. It is thus recommended to add a "Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.16.1)"
       to any package that wish to use those directives.

       The "-await" alias variants are only supported since dpkg 1.17.21, and will lead to errors
       if  used  with  an  older  dpkg.  It  is  thus recommended to add a "Pre-Depends: dpkg (>=
       1.17.21)" to any package that wish to use those directives.

SEE ALSO
       dpkg-trigger(1), dpkg(1), /usr/share/doc/dpkg-dev/triggers.txt.gz.



Debian Project                              2014-10-15                            deb-triggers(5)