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How to extract a .deb file without opening it on Debian or Ubuntu Linux

I downloaded a .deb Debian file. How do I extract deb package without installing it on my Debian or Ubuntu Linux based system? How do I list and extract the contents of a Debian package?

A Debian or Ubuntu .deb package is nothing but old good Unix ar archive format. The ar command is used to keep together groups of files as a single archive and .deb includes the following three files:

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