This package provides the perl modules used by the scripts in dpkg-dev. they cover a wide range of functionality. among them there are the following public modules:

- dpkg: core variables
- dpkg::arch: architecture handling functions
- dpkg::buildflags: set, modify and query compilation build flags
- dpkg::buildoptions: parse and manipulate deb_build_options
- dpkg::buildprofile: parse and manipulate build profiles
- dpkg::changelog: parse changelogs
- dpkg::changelog::entry: represents a changelog entry
- dpkg::changelog::parse: generic changelog parser for dpkg-parsechangelog
- dpkg::checksums: generate and parse checksums
- dpkg::compression: simple database of available compression methods
- dpkg::compression::process: wrapper around compression tools
- dpkg::compression::filehandle: transparently (de)compress files
- dpkg::conf: parse dpkg configuration files
- dpkg::control: parse and manipulate debian control information
(.dsc, .changes, packages/sources entries, etc.)
- dpkg::control::changelog: represent fields output by dpkg-parsechangelog
- dpkg::control::fields: manage (list of known) control fields
- dpkg::control::hash: parse and manipulate a block of rfc822-like fields
- dpkg::control::info: parse files like debian/control
- dpkg::deps: parse and manipulate dependencies
- dpkg::exit: push, pop and run exit handlers
- dpkg::gettext: wrapper around locale::gettext
- dpkg::ipc: spawn sub-processes and feed/retrieve data
- dpkg::index: collections of dpkg::control (packages/sources files for
example)
- dpkg::interface::storable: base object serializer
- dpkg::path: common path handling functions
- dpkg::source::package: extract debian source packages
- dpkg::substvars: substitute variables in strings
- dpkg::vendor: identify current distribution vendor
- dpkg::version: parse and manipulate debian package versions
all the packages listed in suggests or recommends are used by some of the modules.