dh_clean is a debhelper program that is responsible for cleaning up after a
package is built. It removes the package build directories, and removes some
other files including debian/files, and any detritus left behind by other
debhelper commands. It also removes common files that should not appear in a
debian diff:
#*# *~ DEADJOE *.orig *.rej *.SUMS TAGS core .deps/* *.P
OPTIONS
-k, --keep
Do not delete debian/files. When do you want to use this? Anytime you have a
debian/rules that has 2 binary targets that build different .deb packages;
for example, one target is binary-arch, and the other is binary-indep, or
one target builds the shared library, and the other the -dev package. If you
didn't use -k in these cases, then debian/files would be deleted in the
middle, and your changes file will only contain the last binary package that
was built.
-d, --dirs-only
Only clean the package build directories, do not clean up any other files
at all.
-Xitem--exclude=item
Exclude files that contain ``item'' anywhere in their filename from being
deleted, even if they would normally be deleted. You may use this option
multiple times to build up a list of things to exclude.
