\Header{parse.dcf}{Parse Debian Control File Format}
\keyword{utilities}{parse.dcf}
\begin{Description}\relax
Parses text read from a file in Debian control file format, e.g., the
\file{DESCRIPTION} or \file{CONTENTS} of a package.\end{Description}
\begin{Usage}
\begin{verbatim}
parse.dcf(text = NULL, file = "", fields = NULL, versionfix = FALSE)
\end{verbatim}
\end{Usage}
\begin{Arguments}
\begin{ldescription}
\item[\code{text}] A character vector containing one line of the file in each
element.
\item[\code{file}] Name of the file to be parsed.
\item[\code{fields}] A character vector of fields to return (if other fields
occur in the file they are ignored.
\item[\code{versionfix}] Logical, if \code{TRUE} than the version field is
truncated at the first whitespace character.
\end{ldescription}
\end{Arguments}
\begin{Value}
If \code{fields = NULL}, a list with one element per entry is
returned. Each entry is a list of character vectors, one per field.
If \code{fields} are specified, then a character matrix with one row
per entry and one column per field is returned.\end{Value}
\begin{SeeAlso}\relax
\code{\Link{package.contents}}, \code{\Link{library}}\end{SeeAlso}
\begin{Examples}
\begin{ExampleCode}
file <- system.file("CONTENTS", pkg="mva")
parse.dcf(file=file)

## same in 2 steps
filecontent <- scan(file=file, what="", sep="\n")
parse.dcf(text=filecontent)
\end{ExampleCode}
\end{Examples}

