What file is the package description in?

Question

I am wanting to fix a typo in a package description, however I don't know how to access this information. I can see it using the apt-cache show command, but where does the package manager actually get this info? I have scoured the source thinking it might pick it up from a config, or man but no dice.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The package description is taken from the file debian/control in the source package, which contains various metadata about the package including name, version and description. For example, if you wanted to access the description for the coreutils package, you could do:

$ apt-get source coreutils

to download the source package into the current directory (and unpack it), then:

$ vi coreutils-8.5/debian/control

to view and edit the package control file.