| 1 | .\" This manpage is copyright (C) 1998 Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>.\r |
| 2 | .\" \r |
| 3 | .\" This is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify\r |
| 4 | .\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as\r |
| 5 | .\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2,\r |
| 6 | .\" or (at your option) any later version.\r |
| 7 | .\"\r |
| 8 | .\" This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but\r |
| 9 | .\" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of\r |
| 10 | .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the\r |
| 11 | .\" GNU General Public License for more details.\r |
| 12 | .\"\r |
| 13 | .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public\r |
| 14 | .\" License along with APT; if not, write to the Free Software\r |
| 15 | .\" Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA \r |
| 16 | .\" 02111-1307 USA\r |
| 17 | .TH apt-cache 8 "16 June 1998" "Debian GNU/Linux"\r |
| 18 | .SH NAME\r |
| 19 | apt-cache \- APT package handling utility \(em cache manipulator\r |
| 20 | .SH SYNOPSIS\r |
| 21 | .B apt-cache\r |
| 22 | .I command cache\r |
| 23 | .RI [ argument \r |
| 24 | .IR ... ]\r |
| 25 | .SH DESCRIPTION\r |
| 26 | .B apt-cache\r |
| 27 | performs a variety of operations on APT's package cache.\r |
| 28 | .I apt-cache\r |
| 29 | is seldom called directly; instead it is usually invoked internally by\r |
| 30 | .BR apt-get (8)\r |
| 31 | or\r |
| 32 | .BR apt (8).\r |
| 33 | .PP\r |
| 34 | .I command\r |
| 35 | is one of\r |
| 36 | .RS\r |
| 37 | .PD 0\r |
| 38 | .B add\r |
| 39 | .PP\r |
| 40 | .B dump\r |
| 41 | .PP\r |
| 42 | .B dumpavail\r |
| 43 | .PP\r |
| 44 | .B showpkg\r |
| 45 | .PP\r |
| 46 | .B stats\r |
| 47 | .RE\r |
| 48 | .PD 1\r |
| 49 | .PP\r |
| 50 | .I cache\r |
| 51 | must be a package cache file (for instance,\r |
| 52 | .IR /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin ).\r |
| 53 | Some\r |
| 54 | .IR command s\r |
| 55 | require additional arguments.\r |
| 56 | .SS add\r |
| 57 | .B add\r |
| 58 | adds a new set of package records to\r |
| 59 | .IR cache .\r |
| 60 | Remaining arguments are of the form\r |
| 61 | .IR file : dist : ver ,\r |
| 62 | where\r |
| 63 | .I file\r |
| 64 | is the full path to file in question.\r |
| 65 | .I dist\r |
| 66 | and\r |
| 67 | .I ver\r |
| 68 | can be any string and are not yet implemented.\r |
| 69 | .SS dump\r |
| 70 | .B dump\r |
| 71 | displays information about all the packages in the cache. See\r |
| 72 | .B showpkg\r |
| 73 | below for an explanation of what data is output for each package.\r |
| 74 | .SS dumpavail\r |
| 75 | .B dumpavail\r |
| 76 | generates an\r |
| 77 | .I available\r |
| 78 | file suitable for use with\r |
| 79 | .BR dpkg (8)\r |
| 80 | based on the information in the cache.\r |
| 81 | .SS showpkg\r |
| 82 | .B showpkg\r |
| 83 | displays information about the packages listed on the command line. \r |
| 84 | Remaining arguments are package names. The available versions and \r |
| 85 | reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed, as well as \r |
| 86 | forward dependencies for each version. Forward (normal) dependencies \r |
| 87 | are those packages upon which the package in question depends; reverse \r |
| 88 | dependencies are those packages that depend upon the package in \r |
| 89 | question. Thus, forward dependencies must be satisfied for a package, \r |
| 90 | but reverse dependencies need not be. \r |
| 91 | For instance,\r |
| 92 | .B apt-cache showpkg\r |
| 93 | .I cache\r |
| 94 | .B libreadline2\r |
| 95 | would produce output similar to the following:\r |
| 96 | .PP\r |
| 97 | .RS\r |
| 98 | .PD 0\r |
| 99 | Package: libreadline2\r |
| 100 | .PP\r |
| 101 | Versions: 2.1-8,2.1-7,\r |
| 102 | .PP\r |
| 103 | Reverse Depends:\r |
| 104 | .RS\r |
| 105 | .PP\r |
| 106 | libreadlineg2,libreadline2\r |
| 107 | .PP\r |
| 108 | libreadlineg2,libreadline2\r |
| 109 | .PP\r |
| 110 | libreadline2-altdev,libreadline2\r |
| 111 | .RE\r |
| 112 | .PP\r |
| 113 | Dependencies:\r |
| 114 | .PP\r |
| 115 | 2.1-8 - libc5 ncurses3.0 ldso\r |
| 116 | .PP\r |
| 117 | 2.1-7 - ldso libc5 ncurses3.0\r |
| 118 | .RE\r |
| 119 | .PD 1\r |
| 120 | .PP\r |
| 121 | Thus it may be seen that libreadline2, version 2.1-8, depends on libc5,\r |
| 122 | ncurses3.0, and ldso, which must be installed for libreadline2 to work. In\r |
| 123 | turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev depend on libreadline2. If\r |
| 124 | libreadline2 is installed, libc5, ncurses3.0, and ldso must also be\r |
| 125 | installed; libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev do not have to be\r |
| 126 | installed.\r |
| 127 | .SS stats\r |
| 128 | .B stats\r |
| 129 | displays some statistics about\r |
| 130 | .IR cache .\r |
| 131 | No further arguments are expected. Statistics reported are:\r |
| 132 | .RS\r |
| 133 | .TP\r |
| 134 | .I Total package names\r |
| 135 | is the number of package names found in the cache.\r |
| 136 | .TP\r |
| 137 | .I Normal packages\r |
| 138 | is the number of regular, ordinary package names; these\r |
| 139 | are packages that bear a one-to-one correspondence between their names and\r |
| 140 | the names used by other packages for them in dependencies. The majority of\r |
| 141 | packages fall into this category.\r |
| 142 | .TP\r |
| 143 | .I Pure virtual packages\r |
| 144 | is the number of packages that exist only as a virtual package name; that\r |
| 145 | is, packages only "provide" the virtual package name, and no package\r |
| 146 | actually uses the name. For instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian\r |
| 147 | GNU/Linux system is a pure virtual package; several packages provide\r |
| 148 | "mail-transport-agent", but there is no package named "mail-transport-agent".\r |
| 149 | .TP\r |
| 150 | .I Single virtual packages\r |
| 151 | is the number of packages with only one package providing a particular \r |
| 152 | virtual package. For instance, in the Debian GNU/Linux system, \r |
| 153 | "X11-text-viewer" is a virtual package, but only one package, xless, \r |
| 154 | provides "X11-text-viewer".\r |
| 155 | .TP\r |
| 156 | .I Mixed virtual packages\r |
| 157 | is the number of packages that either provide a particular virtual package\r |
| 158 | or have the virtual package name as the package name. For instance, in the\r |
| 159 | Debian GNU/Linux system, e2fsprogs is both an actual package, and\r |
| 160 | provided by the e2compr package.\r |
| 161 | .TP\r |
| 162 | .I Missing\r |
| 163 | is the number of package names that were referenced in a dependency but\r |
| 164 | were not provided by any package. Missing packages may be in evidence\r |
| 165 | if a full distribution is not accesssed, or if a package (real or virtual)\r |
| 166 | has been dropped from the distribution.\r |
| 167 | .TP\r |
| 168 | .I Total distinct versions\r |
| 169 | is the number of package versions found in the cache; this value is\r |
| 170 | therefore at least equal to the number of total package names. If more than\r |
| 171 | one distribution (both "stable" and "unstable", for instance), is being\r |
| 172 | accessed, this value can be considerably larger than the number of total\r |
| 173 | package names.\r |
| 174 | .TP\r |
| 175 | .I Total dependencies\r |
| 176 | is the number of dependency relationships claimed by all of the packages in\r |
| 177 | the cache.\r |
| 178 | .RE\r |
| 179 | .SH OPTIONS\r |
| 180 | None.\r |
| 181 | .SH FILES\r |
| 182 | None.\r |
| 183 | .SH SEE ALSO\r |
| 184 | .BR apt (8),\r |
| 185 | .BR apt-get (8),\r |
| 186 | .I /usr/doc/apt/cache*\r |
| 187 | .SH DIAGNOSTICS\r |
| 188 | apt-cache returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.\r |
| 189 | .SH BUGS\r |
| 190 | See <http://www.debian.org/Bugs/db/pa/lapt.html>. If you wish to report a\r |
| 191 | bug in\r |
| 192 | .BR apt-cache ,\r |
| 193 | please see\r |
| 194 | .I /usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt\r |
| 195 | or the\r |
| 196 | .BR bug (1)\r |
| 197 | command.\r |
| 198 | .SH AUTHOR\r |
| 199 | apt-cache was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.\r |