]> git.saurik.com Git - apt.git/blame - doc/apt-cache.8.xml
Switch French manpages translation to po4a
[apt.git] / doc / apt-cache.8.xml
CommitLineData
24f6490f
AL
1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
2<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
4
5<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
6%aptent;
7
8]>
9
10<refentry>
5e80de29
AL
11
12 <refentryinfo>
13 &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
14 &apt-author.team;
15 &apt-email;
16 &apt-product;
17 <!-- The last update date -->
18 <date>29 February 2004</date>
19 </refentryinfo>
24f6490f
AL
20
21 <refmeta>
22 <refentrytitle>apt-cache</refentrytitle>
23 <manvolnum>8</manvolnum>
f0599b9c 24 <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
24f6490f
AL
25 </refmeta>
26
27 <!-- Man page title -->
28 <refnamediv>
29 <refname>apt-cache</refname>
30 <refpurpose>APT package handling utility -- cache manipulator</refpurpose>
31 </refnamediv>
32
33 <!-- Arguments -->
34 <refsynopsisdiv>
35 <cmdsynopsis>
36 <command>apt-cache</command>
37 <arg><option>-hvsn</option></arg>
38 <arg><option>-o=<replaceable>config string</replaceable></option></arg>
39 <arg><option>-c=<replaceable>file</replaceable></option></arg>
40 <group choice="req">
41 <arg>add <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>file</replaceable></arg></arg>
42 <arg>gencaches</arg>
43 <arg>showpkg <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
44 <arg>showsrc <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
45 <arg>stats</arg>
46 <arg>dump</arg>
47 <arg>dumpavail</arg>
48 <arg>unmet</arg>
49 <arg>search <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>regex</replaceable></arg></arg>
50 <arg>show <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
51 <arg>depends <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
52 <arg>rdepends <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
53 <arg>pkgnames <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>prefix</replaceable></arg></arg>
54 <arg>dotty <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
7e4c7441 55 <arg>xvcg <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
24f6490f
AL
56 <arg>policy <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkgs</replaceable></arg></arg>
57 <arg>madison <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkgs</replaceable></arg></arg>
58 </group>
59 </cmdsynopsis>
60 </refsynopsisdiv>
61
62 <refsect1><title>Description</title>
63 <para><command>apt-cache</command> performs a variety of operations on APT's package
64 cache. <command>apt-cache</command> does not manipulate the state of the system
65 but does provide operations to search and generate interesting output
66 from the package metadata.</para>
67
68 <para>Unless the <option>-h</option>, or <option>--help</option> option is given, one of the
69 commands below must be present.</para>
70
71 <variablelist>
72 <varlistentry><term>add <replaceable>file(s)</replaceable></term>
73 <listitem><para><literal>add</literal> adds the named package index files to the package cache.
74 This is for debugging only.</para></listitem>
75 </varlistentry>
76
77 <varlistentry><term>gencaches</term>
78 <listitem><para><literal>gencaches</literal> performs the same operation as
79 <command>apt-get check</command>. It builds the source and package caches from
80 the sources in &sources-list; and from
81 <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.</para></listitem>
82 </varlistentry>
83
84 <varlistentry><term>showpkg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
85 <listitem><para><literal>showpkg</literal> displays information about the packages listed on the
86 command line. Remaining arguments are package names. The available
87 versions and reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed, as
88 well as forward dependencies for each version. Forward (normal)
89 dependencies are those packages upon which the package in question
90 depends; reverse dependencies are those packages that depend upon the
91 package in question. Thus, forward dependencies must be satisfied for a
92 package, but reverse dependencies need not be.
93 For instance, <command>apt-cache showpkg libreadline2</command> would produce
94 output similar to the following:</para>
95
96<informalexample><programlisting>
97Package: libreadline2
98Versions: 2.1-12(/var/state/apt/lists/foo_Packages),
99Reverse Depends:
100 libreadlineg2,libreadline2
101 libreadline2-altdev,libreadline2
102Dependencies:
1032.1-12 - libc5 (2 5.4.0-0) ncurses3.0 (0 (null))
104Provides:
1052.1-12 -
106Reverse Provides:
107</programlisting></informalexample>
108
109 <para>Thus it may be seen that libreadline2, version 2.1-12, depends on
110 libc5 and ncurses3.0 which must be installed for libreadline2 to work.
111 In turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev depend on libreadline2. If
112 libreadline2 is installed, libc5 and ncurses3.0 (and ldso) must also be
113 installed; libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev do not have to be
114 installed. For the specific meaning of the remainder of the output it
115 is best to consult the apt source code.</para></listitem>
116 </varlistentry>
117
118 <varlistentry><term>stats</term><listitem><para><literal>stats</literal> displays some statistics about the cache.
119 No further arguments are expected. Statistics reported are:
120 <itemizedlist>
121 <listitem><para><literal>Total package names</literal> is the number of package names found
122 in the cache.</para>
123 </listitem>
124
125 <listitem><para><literal>Normal packages</literal> is the number of regular, ordinary package
126 names; these are packages that bear a one-to-one correspondence between
127 their names and the names used by other packages for them in
128 dependencies. The majority of packages fall into this category.</para>
129 </listitem>
130
131 <listitem><para><literal>Pure virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that exist
132 only as a virtual package name; that is, packages only "provide" the
133 virtual package name, and no package actually uses the name. For
134 instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian GNU/Linux system is a
135 pure virtual package; several packages provide "mail-transport-agent",
136 but there is no package named "mail-transport-agent".</para>
137 </listitem>
138
139 <listitem><para><literal>Single virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages with only
140 one package providing a particular virtual package. For example, in the
141 Debian GNU/Linux system, "X11-text-viewer" is a virtual package, but
142 only one package, xless, provides "X11-text-viewer".</para>
143 </listitem>
144
145 <listitem><para><literal>Mixed virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that either
146 provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual package name
147 as the package name. For instance, in the Debian GNU/Linux system,
148 "debconf" is both an actual package, and provided by the debconf-tiny
149 package.</para>
150 </listitem>
151
152 <listitem><para><literal>Missing</literal> is the number of package names that were referenced in
153 a dependency but were not provided by any package. Missing packages may
154 be in evidence if a full distribution is not accessed, or if a package
155 (real or virtual) has been dropped from the distribution. Usually they
308c7d30 156 are referenced from Conflicts or Breaks statements.</para>
24f6490f
AL
157 </listitem>
158
159 <listitem><para><literal>Total distinct</literal> versions is the number of package versions
160 found in the cache; this value is therefore at least equal to the
161 number of total package names. If more than one distribution (both
162 "stable" and "unstable", for instance), is being accessed, this value
163 can be considerably larger than the number of total package names.</para>
164 </listitem>
165
166 <listitem><para><literal>Total dependencies</literal> is the number of dependency relationships
167 claimed by all of the packages in the cache.</para>
168 </listitem>
169 </itemizedlist>
170 </para></listitem>
171 </varlistentry>
172
173 <varlistentry><term>showsrc <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
174 <listitem><para><literal>showsrc</literal> displays all the source package records that match
175 the given package names. All versions are shown, as well as all
176 records that declare the name to be a Binary.</para></listitem>
177 </varlistentry>
178
179 <varlistentry><term>dump</term>
180 <listitem><para><literal>dump</literal> shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is
181 primarily for debugging.</para></listitem>
182 </varlistentry>
183
184 <varlistentry><term>dumpavail</term>
185 <listitem><para><literal>dumpavail</literal> prints out an available list to stdout. This is
186 suitable for use with &dpkg; and is used by the &dselect; method.</para></listitem>
187 </varlistentry>
188
189 <varlistentry><term>unmet</term>
190 <listitem><para><literal>unmet</literal> displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the
191 package cache.</para></listitem>
192 </varlistentry>
193
194 <varlistentry><term>show <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
195 <listitem><para><literal>show</literal> performs a function similar to
babb80e1 196 <command>dpkg --print-avail</command>; it displays the package records for the
24f6490f
AL
197 named packages.</para></listitem>
198 </varlistentry>
199
200 <varlistentry><term>search <replaceable>regex [ regex ... ]</replaceable></term>
201 <listitem><para><literal>search</literal> performs a full text search on all available package
696268f7 202 lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see
f0270266
MV
203 <citerefentry><refentrytitle><command>regex</command></refentrytitle>
204 <manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
696268f7 205 It searches the package names and the
24f6490f 206 descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out
696268f7
LB
207 the package name and the short description, including virtual package
208 names.
209 If <option>--full</option> is given
24f6490f
AL
210 then output identical to <literal>show</literal> is produced for each matched
211 package, and if <option>--names-only</option> is given then the long description
212 is not searched, only the package name is.</para>
213 <para>
214 Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that
215 are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
216 </varlistentry>
217
218 <varlistentry><term>depends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
219 <listitem><para><literal>depends</literal> shows a listing of each dependency a package has
220 and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.</para></listitem>
221 </varlistentry>
222
223 <varlistentry><term>rdepends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
4a5e5089 224 <listitem><para><literal>rdepends</literal> shows a listing of each reverse dependency a
24f6490f
AL
225 package has.</para></listitem>
226 </varlistentry>
227
228 <varlistentry><term>pkgnames <replaceable>[ prefix ]</replaceable></term>
229 <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package in the system. The optional
230 argument is a prefix match to filter the name list. The output is suitable
231 for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated
232 extremely quickly. This command is best used with the
233 <option>--generate</option> option.</para></listitem>
234 </varlistentry>
235
236 <varlistentry><term>dotty <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
237 <listitem><para><literal>dotty</literal> takes a list of packages on the command line and
238 generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
239 <ulink url="http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/">GraphViz</ulink>
240 package. The result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the
241 relationships between the packages. By default the given packages will
242 trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very large graph.
243 To limit the output to only the packages listed on the command line,
244 set the <literal>APT::Cache::GivenOnly</literal> option.</para>
245
246 <para>The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes,
247 pure provides are triangles, mixed provides are diamonds,
248 missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped
249 [leaf packages], blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
250
251 <para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
252 </varlistentry>
253
c2c45f40
EL
254 <varlistentry><term>xvcg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
255 <listitem><para>The same as <literal>dotty</literal>, only for xvcg from the
256 <ulink url="http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html">VCG tool</ulink>.
257 </para></listitem></varlistentry>
258
24f6490f 259 <varlistentry><term>policy <replaceable>[ pkg(s) ]</replaceable></term>
335f09c5 260 <listitem><para><literal>policy</literal> is meant to help debug issues relating to the
24f6490f
AL
261 preferences file. With no arguments it will print out the
262 priorities of each source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information
263 about the priority selection of the named package.</para></listitem>
264 </varlistentry>
265
266 <varlistentry><term>madison <replaceable>/[ pkg(s) ]</replaceable></term>
267 <listitem><para><literal>apt-cache</literal>'s <literal>madison</literal> command attempts to mimic
268 the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian
269 archive management tool, <literal>madison</literal>. It displays
270 available versions of a package in a tabular format. Unlike the
271 original <literal>madison</literal>, it can only display information for
272 the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists
273 (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>).</para></listitem>
274 </varlistentry>
275 </variablelist>
276 </refsect1>
277
278 <refsect1><title>options</title>
279 &apt-cmdblurb;
280
281 <variablelist>
282 <varlistentry><term><option>-p</option></term><term><option>--pkg-cache</option></term>
283 <listitem><para>Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is the
284 primary cache used by all operations.
285 Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::pkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
286 </varlistentry>
287
288 <varlistentry><term><option>-s</option></term><term><option>--src-cache</option></term>
289 <listitem><para>Select the file to store the source cache. The source is used only by
290 <literal>gencaches</literal> and it stores a parsed version of the package
291 information from remote sources. When building the package cache the
584c10c5 292 source cache is used to avoid reparsing all of the package files.
24f6490f
AL
293 Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
294 </varlistentry>
295
296 <varlistentry><term><option>-q</option></term><term><option>--quiet</option></term>
297 <listitem><para>Quiet; produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress indicators.
298 More q's will produce more quietness up to a maximum of 2. You can also use
299 <option>-q=#</option> to set the quietness level, overriding the configuration file.
300 Configuration Item: <literal>quiet</literal>.</para></listitem>
301 </varlistentry>
302
303 <varlistentry><term><option>-i</option></term><term><option>--important</option></term>
5aa95c86 304 <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with unmet and depends. Causes only Depends and
24f6490f
AL
305 Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
306 Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Important</literal>.</para></listitem>
307 </varlistentry>
308
309 <varlistentry><term><option>-f</option></term><term><option>--full</option></term>
310 <listitem><para>Print full package records when searching.
311 Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowFull</literal>.</para></listitem>
312 </varlistentry>
313
314 <varlistentry><term><option>-a</option></term><term><option>--all-versions</option></term>
315 <listitem><para>Print full records for all available versions. This is the
316 default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-all-versions</option>.
317 If <option>--no-all-versions</option> is specified, only the candidate version
318 will displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
319 This option is only applicable to the <literal>show</literal> command.
320 Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllVersions</literal>.</para></listitem>
321 </varlistentry>
322
323 <varlistentry><term><option>-g</option></term><term><option>--generate</option></term>
324 <listitem><para>Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use the cache
325 as it is. This is the default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-generate</option>.
326 Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Generate</literal>.</para></listitem>
327 </varlistentry>
328
329 <varlistentry><term><option>--names-only</option></term><term><option>-n</option></term>
330 <listitem><para>Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions.
331 Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::NamesOnly</literal>.</para></listitem>
332 </varlistentry>
333
334 <varlistentry><term><option>--all-names</option></term>
335 <listitem><para>Make <literal>pkgnames</literal> print all names, including virtual packages
336 and missing dependencies.
337 Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllNames</literal>.</para></listitem>
338 </varlistentry>
339
340 <varlistentry><term><option>--recurse</option></term>
341 <listitem><para>Make <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> recursive so
342 that all packages mentioned are printed once.
343 Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::RecurseDepends</literal>.</para></listitem>
344 </varlistentry>
345
346 <varlistentry><term><option>--installed</option></term>
347 <listitem><para>
348 Limit the output of <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> to
349 packages which are currently installed.
350 Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Installed</literal>.</para></listitem>
351 </varlistentry>
352
353 &apt-commonoptions;
354
355 </variablelist>
356 </refsect1>
357
358 <refsect1><title>Files</title>
359 <variablelist>
360 <varlistentry><term><filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename></term>
361 <listitem><para>Locations to fetch packages from.
362 Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Etc::SourceList</literal>.</para></listitem>
363 </varlistentry>
364
365 <varlistentry><term><filename>&statedir;/lists/</filename></term>
366 <listitem><para>Storage area for state information for each package resource specified in
367 &sources-list;
368 Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::State::Lists</literal>.</para></listitem>
369 </varlistentry>
370
371 <varlistentry><term><filename>&statedir;/lists/partial/</filename></term>
372 <listitem><para>Storage area for state information in transit.
373 Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::State::Lists</literal> (implicit partial).</para></listitem>
374 </varlistentry>
375 </variablelist>
376 </refsect1>
377
378 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
379 <para>&apt-conf;, &sources-list;, &apt-get;
380 </para>
381 </refsect1>
382
383 <refsect1><title>Diagnostics</title>
384 <para><command>apt-cache</command> returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
385 </para>
386 </refsect1>
387
388 &manbugs;
24f6490f
AL
389
390</refentry>