6.1 Variable Names

Variable names may only consist of uppercase and lowercase Latin letters, digits, and hyphens. Names must be at least one character long. (A regular expression for this is [A-Za-z0-9-]+.)

6.2 Variable Substitutions

Variable substitutions are performed on certain source and binary control field values, as explained in § 5.

The format for variable substitutions is as follows:

${<var-name>}

<var-name> is the name of the variable.

6.3 Special Variables

The following substitution variables shall be set:

• Source-Version

  The source package version, as given in the most recent entry of the change log. See § 4.6 for the syntax of source package version identifiers.

• Binary-Version

  The binary package version, as given in the most recent entry of the change log. See § 4.6 for the syntax of source package version identifiers.

• Host-Arch

  The distribution architecture string of the host system.

• Host-Plat

  The application platform of the host system.

6.4 Defining Substitution Variables

Substitution variables may be defined in a file called substvars. See § 4.1 for the format of this file.

Names must conform to the requirements outlined in § 6.1. Values may be comprised of multiple lines, and empty lines at the beginning and end of each substitution variable value shall be removed.