Man page 1 : dh_pysupport

dh_pysupport - use the python-support framework to handle Python modules

dh_pysupport [debhelper options] [-V X.Y] [-X item [...]] [-n] [module dirs ...]

dh_pysupport is a debhelper program that will scan your package, detect public modules in /usr/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages, and move them to the shared Python modules location. It will generate appropriate postinst/prerm scripts to byte-compile modules installed there for all available python versions.

It will also look for private Python modules and will byte-compile them with the current Python version. You may have to list the directories containing private Python modules.

If a file named debian/pyversions exists, it is used to determine the python versions with which the package can work.

Appropriate dependencies on python-support, python and pythonX.Y are put in ${python:Depends}. The ${python:Versions} and ${python:Provides} optional substitution variables are made available as well.

module dirs 4 If your package installs private python modules in non-standard directories, you can make dh_pysupport check those directories by passing their names on the command line. By default, it will check /usr/lib/$PACKAGE, /usr/share/$PACKAGE, /usr/lib/games/$PACKAGE and /usr/share/games/$PACKAGE

-n, --noscripts 4 Do not modify postinst/postrm scripts.

-d 4 This option is deprecated.

-V X.Y 4 Force private modules to be bytecompiled with the specific X.Y python version, regardless of the default python version on the system.

-X item, --exclude=item 4 Exclude files that contain \*(L"item\*(R" anywhere in their filename from being taken into account to generate the python dependency. It also excludes them from byte-compilation. You may use this option multiple times to build up a list of things to exclude.

Python policy as of 2006-08-10

debhelper (7)

This program is a part of python-support but is made to work with debhelper.

Josselin Mouette <>, Raphael Hertzog <>