makowskid/dcfparser

DcfParser - parse Debian Control Files with PHP

2.0.0 2026-02-05 15:30 UTC

Requires

• php: ^8.2

Requires (Dev)

• friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer: ^3.0
• phpstan/phpstan: ^2.0
• phpunit/phpunit: ^12.0

MIT

• Dawid Makowski

• DCF
• dcfparser

README

DcfParser is a PHP & Laravel package to parse Debian Control Files (DCF format).

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+

Installation

composer require makowskid/dcfparser

Usage

Parse a file (first stanza)

$parser = new \makowskid\DcfParser\DcfParser();
$data = $parser->parseFile('/path/to/control');
// ['source' => 'gentoo', 'section' => 'games', ...]

Parse a string

$data = $parser->parseString("Source: gentoo\nSection: games\n");

Parse all stanzas

DCF files can contain multiple stanzas (paragraphs) separated by blank lines:

$stanzas = $parser->parseFileAll('/path/to/control');
// or
$stanzas = $parser->parseStringAll($content);

// Returns: [['source' => 'gentoo', ...], ['package' => 'gentoo', ...]]

Laravel

The package auto-discovers its service provider. Use the facade:

\DcfParser::parseFile('/path/to/control');
\DcfParser::parseString($content);
\DcfParser::parseFileAll('/path/to/control');
\DcfParser::parseStringAll($content);

DCF Format

Reference: https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html

Example input:

Source: gentoo
Section: games
Priority: optional
Maintainer: Josip Rodin <[e-mail]>
Build-Depends: debhelper (>=10)
Homepage: https://packages.debian.org/gentoo

Package: gentoo
Architecture: any
Description: A nice game
 Gentoo is a classic Jumpn Run sidescrolling game.

Parsed result (first stanza):

[
    'source' => 'gentoo',
    'section' => 'games',
    'priority' => 'optional',
    'maintainer' => 'Josip Rodin <[e-mail]>',
    'build-depends' => 'debhelper (>=10)',
    'homepage' => 'https://packages.debian.org/gentoo',
]

Key behaviors:

• Keys are normalized to lowercase
• Only the first : splits key from value
• Continuation lines (starting with whitespace) are appended to the previous field
• Blank lines separate stanzas
• Comment lines (starting with #) are skipped
• Throws DcfParserException on malformed input or file errors

Development

composer install
composer test        # Run tests
composer analyse     # PHPStan (level 8)
composer cs-fix      # Fix code style
composer cs-check    # Check code style

Credits

• Dawid Makowski
• Alin Purcaru - thanks for inspiration on StackOverflow

License

The MIT License (MIT). See the License File for more information.