DOKK / manpages / debian 10 / devscripts / dscextract.1.en
DSCEXTRACT(1) General Commands Manual DSCEXTRACT(1)

dscextract - extract a single file from a Debian source package

dscextract [options] dscfile file

dscextract reads a single file from a Debian source package. The idea is to only look into .diff.gz files (source format 1.0) or .debian.tar.gz/bz2 files (source format 3.0) where possible, hence avoiding to unpack large tarballs. It is most useful for files in the debian/ subdirectory.

file is relative to the first level directory contained in the package, i.e. with the first component stripped.

"Fast" mode. For source format 1.0, avoid to fall back scanning the .orig.tar.gz file if file was not found in the .diff.gz. (For 3.0 packages, it is assumed that debian/* are exactly the contents of debian.tar.gz/bz2.)

0
file was extracted.
1
file was not found in the source package.
2
An error occurred, like dscfile was not found.

dscextract dds_2.1.1+ddd105-2.dsc debian/watch || test $? = 1

dscextract was written by Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org>.

Debian Utilities DEBIAN