doc/apt-cache.8.xml

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   4
   5 <!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
   6 %aptent;
   7
   8 <!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent">
   9 %aptverbatiment;
  10
  11 ]>
  12
  13 <refentry>
  14
  15  <refentryinfo>
  16    &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
  17    &apt-author.team;
  18    &apt-email;
  19    &apt-product;
  20    <!-- The last update date -->
  21    <date>29 February 2004</date>
  22  </refentryinfo>
  23
  24  <refmeta>
  25    <refentrytitle>apt-cache</refentrytitle>
  26    <manvolnum>8</manvolnum>
  27    <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
  28  </refmeta>
  29
  30  <!-- Man page title -->
  31  <refnamediv>
  32     <refname>apt-cache</refname>
  33     <refpurpose>APT package handling utility -- cache manipulator</refpurpose>
  34  </refnamediv>
  35
  36  <!-- Arguments -->
  37  <refsynopsisdiv>
  38    <cmdsynopsis>
  39       <command>apt-cache</command>
  40       <arg><option>-hvsn</option></arg>
  41       <arg><option>-o=<replaceable>config string</replaceable></option></arg>
  42       <arg><option>-c=<replaceable>file</replaceable></option></arg>
  43       <group choice="req">
  44          <arg>add <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>file</replaceable></arg></arg>
  45          <arg>gencaches</arg>
  46          <arg>showpkg <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
  47          <arg>showsrc <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
  48          <arg>stats</arg>
  49          <arg>dump</arg>
  50          <arg>dumpavail</arg>
  51          <arg>unmet</arg>
  52          <arg>search <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>regex</replaceable></arg></arg>
  53          <arg>show <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
  54          <arg>depends <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
  55          <arg>rdepends <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
  56          <arg>pkgnames <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>prefix</replaceable></arg></arg>
  57          <arg>dotty <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
  58          <arg>xvcg <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
  59          <arg>policy <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkgs</replaceable></arg></arg>
  60          <arg>madison <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkgs</replaceable></arg></arg>
  61       </group>
  62    </cmdsynopsis>
  63  </refsynopsisdiv>
  64
  65  <refsect1><title>Description</title>
  66    <para><command>apt-cache</command> performs a variety of operations on APT's package
  67    cache. <command>apt-cache</command> does not manipulate the state of the system
  68    but does provide operations to search and generate interesting output
  69    from the package metadata.</para>
  70
  71    <para>Unless the <option>-h</option>, or <option>--help</option> option is given, one of the
  72    commands below must be present.</para>
  73
  74    <variablelist>
  75      <varlistentry><term>add <replaceable>file(s)</replaceable></term>
  76      <listitem><para><literal>add</literal> adds the named package index files to the package cache.
  77      This is for debugging only.</para></listitem>
  78      </varlistentry>
  79
  80      <varlistentry><term>gencaches</term>
  81      <listitem><para><literal>gencaches</literal> performs the same operation as
  82      <command>apt-get check</command>. It builds the source and package caches from
  83      the sources in &sources-list; and from
  84      <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.</para></listitem>
  85      </varlistentry>
  86
  87      <varlistentry><term>showpkg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
  88      <listitem><para><literal>showpkg</literal> displays information about the packages listed on the
  89      command line. Remaining arguments are package names. The available
  90      versions and reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed, as
  91      well as forward dependencies for each version. Forward (normal)
  92      dependencies are those packages upon which the package in question
  93      depends; reverse dependencies are those packages that depend upon the
  94      package in question. Thus, forward dependencies must be satisfied for a
  95      package, but reverse dependencies need not be.
  96      For instance, <command>apt-cache showpkg libreadline2</command> would produce
  97      output similar to the following:</para>
  98
  99 <informalexample><programlisting>
 100 Package: libreadline2
 101 Versions: 2.1-12(/var/state/apt/lists/foo_Packages),
 102 Reverse Depends:
 103   libreadlineg2,libreadline2
 104   libreadline2-altdev,libreadline2
 105 Dependencies:
 106 2.1-12 - libc5 (2 5.4.0-0) ncurses3.0 (0 (null))
 107 Provides:
 108 2.1-12 -
 109 Reverse Provides:
 110 </programlisting></informalexample>
 111
 112      <para>Thus it may be seen that libreadline2, version 2.1-12, depends on
 113      libc5 and ncurses3.0 which must be installed for libreadline2 to work.
 114      In turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev depend on libreadline2. If
 115      libreadline2 is installed, libc5 and ncurses3.0 (and ldso) must also be
 116      installed; libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev do not have to be
 117      installed. For the specific meaning of the remainder of the output it
 118      is best to consult the apt source code.</para></listitem>
 119      </varlistentry>
 120
 121      <varlistentry><term>stats</term><listitem><para><literal>stats</literal> displays some statistics about the cache.
 122      No further arguments are expected. Statistics reported are:
 123      <itemizedlist>
 124        <listitem><para><literal>Total package names</literal> is the number of package names found
 125        in the cache.</para>
 126        </listitem>
 127
 128        <listitem><para><literal>Normal packages</literal> is the number of regular, ordinary package
 129        names; these are packages that bear a one-to-one correspondence between
 130        their names and the names used by other packages for them in
 131        dependencies. The majority of packages fall into this category.</para>
 132        </listitem>
 133
 134        <listitem><para><literal>Pure virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that exist
 135        only as a virtual package name; that is, packages only "provide" the
 136        virtual package name, and no package actually uses the name. For
 137        instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian GNU/Linux system is a
 138        pure virtual package; several packages provide "mail-transport-agent",
 139        but there is no package named "mail-transport-agent".</para>
 140        </listitem>
 141
 142        <listitem><para><literal>Single virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages with only
 143        one package providing a particular virtual package. For example, in the
 144        Debian GNU/Linux system, "X11-text-viewer" is a virtual package, but
 145        only one package, xless, provides "X11-text-viewer".</para>
 146        </listitem>
 147
 148        <listitem><para><literal>Mixed virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that either
 149        provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual package name
 150        as the package name. For instance, in the Debian GNU/Linux system,
 151        "debconf" is both an actual package, and provided by the debconf-tiny
 152        package.</para>
 153        </listitem>
 154
 155        <listitem><para><literal>Missing</literal> is the number of package names that were referenced in
 156        a dependency but were not provided by any package. Missing packages may
 157        be an evidence if a full distribution is not accessed, or if a package
 158        (real or virtual) has been dropped from the distribution. Usually they
 159        are referenced from Conflicts or Breaks statements.</para>
 160        </listitem>
 161
 162        <listitem><para><literal>Total distinct</literal> versions is the number of package versions
 163        found in the cache; this value is therefore at least equal to the
 164        number of total package names. If more than one distribution (both
 165        "stable" and "unstable", for instance), is being accessed, this value
 166        can be considerably larger than the number of total package names.</para>
 167        </listitem>
 168
 169        <listitem><para><literal>Total dependencies</literal> is the number of dependency relationships
 170        claimed by all of the packages in the cache.</para>
 171        </listitem>
 172      </itemizedlist>
 173      </para></listitem>
 174      </varlistentry>
 175
 176      <varlistentry><term>showsrc <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 177      <listitem><para><literal>showsrc</literal> displays all the source package records that match
 178      the given package names. All versions are shown, as well as all
 179      records that declare the name to be a Binary.</para></listitem>
 180      </varlistentry>
 181
 182      <varlistentry><term>dump</term>
 183      <listitem><para><literal>dump</literal> shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is
 184      primarily for debugging.</para></listitem>
 185      </varlistentry>
 186
 187      <varlistentry><term>dumpavail</term>
 188      <listitem><para><literal>dumpavail</literal> prints out an available list to stdout. This is
 189      suitable for use with &dpkg; and is used by the &dselect; method.</para></listitem>
 190      </varlistentry>
 191
 192      <varlistentry><term>unmet</term>
 193      <listitem><para><literal>unmet</literal> displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the
 194      package cache.</para></listitem>
 195      </varlistentry>
 196
 197      <varlistentry><term>show <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 198      <listitem><para><literal>show</literal> performs a function similar to
 199      <command>dpkg --print-avail</command>; it displays the package records for the
 200      named packages.</para></listitem>
 201      </varlistentry>
 202
 203      <varlistentry><term>search <replaceable>regex [ regex ... ]</replaceable></term>
 204      <listitem><para><literal>search</literal> performs a full text search on all available package
 205      lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see
 206      <citerefentry><refentrytitle><command>regex</command></refentrytitle>
 207      <manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
 208      It searches the package names and the
 209      descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out
 210      the package name and the short description, including virtual package
 211      names.
 212      If <option>--full</option> is given
 213      then output identical to <literal>show</literal> is produced for each matched
 214      package, and if <option>--names-only</option> is given then the long description
 215      is not searched, only the package name is.</para>
 216      <para>
 217      Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that
 218      are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
 219      </varlistentry>
 220
 221      <varlistentry><term>depends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 222      <listitem><para><literal>depends</literal> shows a listing of each dependency a package has
 223      and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.</para></listitem>
 224      </varlistentry>
 225
 226      <varlistentry><term>rdepends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 227      <listitem><para><literal>rdepends</literal> shows a listing of each reverse dependency a
 228       package has.</para></listitem>
 229      </varlistentry>
 230
 231      <varlistentry><term>pkgnames <replaceable>[ prefix ]</replaceable></term>
 232      <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package APT knows. The optional
 233      argument is a prefix match to filter the name list. The output is suitable
 234      for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated
 235      extremely quickly. This command is best used with the
 236      <option>--generate</option> option.</para>
 237      <para>Note that a package which APT knows of is not necessarily available to download,
 238      installable or installed, e.g. virtual packages are also listed in the generated list.
 239      </para></listitem>
 240      </varlistentry>
 241
 242      <varlistentry><term>dotty <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 243      <listitem><para><literal>dotty</literal> takes a list of packages on the command line and
 244      generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
 245      <ulink url="http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/">GraphViz</ulink>
 246      package. The result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the
 247      relationships between the packages. By default the given packages will
 248      trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very large graph.
 249      To limit the output to only the packages listed on the command line,
 250      set the <literal>APT::Cache::GivenOnly</literal> option.</para>
 251
 252      <para>The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes,
 253      pure provides are triangles, mixed provides are diamonds,
 254      missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped
 255      [leaf packages], blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
 256
 257      <para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
 258      </varlistentry>
 259
 260      <varlistentry><term>xvcg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 261          <listitem><para>The same as <literal>dotty</literal>, only for xvcg from the
 262          <ulink url="http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html">VCG tool</ulink>.
 263          </para></listitem></varlistentry>
 264
 265      <varlistentry><term>policy <replaceable>[ pkg(s) ]</replaceable></term>
 266      <listitem><para><literal>policy</literal> is meant to help debug issues relating to the
 267      preferences file. With no arguments it will print out the
 268      priorities of each source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information
 269      about the priority selection of the named package.</para></listitem>
 270      </varlistentry>
 271
 272      <varlistentry><term>madison <replaceable>/[ pkg(s) ]</replaceable></term>
 273      <listitem><para><literal>apt-cache</literal>'s <literal>madison</literal> command attempts to mimic
 274      the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian
 275      archive management tool, <literal>madison</literal>.  It displays
 276      available versions of a package in a tabular format.  Unlike the
 277      original <literal>madison</literal>, it can only display information for
 278      the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists
 279      (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>).</para></listitem>
 280      </varlistentry>
 281    </variablelist>
 282  </refsect1>
 283
 284  <refsect1><title>options</title>
 285    &apt-cmdblurb;
 286
 287    <variablelist>
 288      <varlistentry><term><option>-p</option></term><term><option>--pkg-cache</option></term>
 289      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is the
 290      primary cache used by all operations.
 291      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::pkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 292      </varlistentry>
 293
 294      <varlistentry><term><option>-s</option></term><term><option>--src-cache</option></term>
 295      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the source cache. The source is used only by
 296      <literal>gencaches</literal> and it stores a parsed version of the package
 297      information from remote sources. When building the package cache the
 298      source cache is used to avoid reparsing all of the package files.
 299      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 300      </varlistentry>
 301
 302      <varlistentry><term><option>-q</option></term><term><option>--quiet</option></term>
 303      <listitem><para>Quiet; produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress indicators.
 304      More q's will produce more quietness up to a maximum of 2. You can also use
 305      <option>-q=#</option> to set the quietness level, overriding the configuration file.
 306      Configuration Item: <literal>quiet</literal>.</para></listitem>
 307      </varlistentry>
 308
 309      <varlistentry><term><option>-i</option></term><term><option>--important</option></term>
 310      <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with unmet and depends. Causes only Depends and
 311      Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
 312      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Important</literal>.</para></listitem>
 313      </varlistentry>
 314
 315      <varlistentry><term><option>--no-pre-depends</option></term>
 316                    <term><option>--no-depends</option></term>
 317                    <term><option>--no-recommends</option></term>
 318                    <term><option>--no-suggests</option></term>
 319                    <term><option>--no-conflicts</option></term>
 320                    <term><option>--no-breaks</option></term>
 321                    <term><option>--no-replaces</option></term>
 322                    <term><option>--no-enhances</option></term>
 323                    <listitem><para>Per default the <literal>depends</literal> and
 324      <literal>rdepends</literal> print all dependencies. This can be twicked with
 325      these flags which will omit the specified dependency type.
 326      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Show<replaceable>DependencyType</replaceable></literal>
 327      e.g. <literal>APT::Cache::ShowRecommends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 328      </varlistentry>
 329      <varlistentry><term><option>-f</option></term><term><option>--full</option></term>
 330      <listitem><para>Print full package records when searching.
 331      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowFull</literal>.</para></listitem>
 332      </varlistentry>
 333
 334      <varlistentry><term><option>-a</option></term><term><option>--all-versions</option></term>
 335      <listitem><para>Print full records for all available versions. This is the
 336      default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-all-versions</option>.
 337      If <option>--no-all-versions</option> is specified, only the candidate version
 338      will displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
 339      This option is only applicable to  the <literal>show</literal> command.
 340      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllVersions</literal>.</para></listitem>
 341      </varlistentry>
 342
 343      <varlistentry><term><option>-g</option></term><term><option>--generate</option></term>
 344      <listitem><para>Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use the cache
 345      as it is. This is the default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-generate</option>.
 346      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Generate</literal>.</para></listitem>
 347      </varlistentry>
 348
 349      <varlistentry><term><option>--names-only</option></term><term><option>-n</option></term>
 350      <listitem><para>Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions.
 351      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::NamesOnly</literal>.</para></listitem>
 352      </varlistentry>
 353
 354      <varlistentry><term><option>--all-names</option></term>
 355      <listitem><para>Make <literal>pkgnames</literal> print all names, including virtual packages
 356      and missing dependencies.
 357      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllNames</literal>.</para></listitem>
 358      </varlistentry>
 359
 360      <varlistentry><term><option>--recurse</option></term>
 361      <listitem><para>Make <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> recursive so
 362      that all packages mentioned are printed once.
 363      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::RecurseDepends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 364      </varlistentry>
 365
 366       <varlistentry><term><option>--installed</option></term>
 367       <listitem><para>
 368       Limit the output of <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> to
 369       packages which are currently installed.
 370       Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Installed</literal>.</para></listitem>
 371       </varlistentry>
 372
 373      &apt-commonoptions;
 374
 375    </variablelist>
 376  </refsect1>
 377
 378  <refsect1><title>Files</title>
 379    <variablelist>
 380      &file-sourceslist;
 381      &file-statelists;
 382    </variablelist>
 383  </refsect1>
 384
 385  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 386    <para>&apt-conf;, &sources-list;, &apt-get;
 387    </para>
 388  </refsect1>
 389
 390  <refsect1><title>Diagnostics</title>
 391    <para><command>apt-cache</command> returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
 392    </para>
 393  </refsect1>
 394
 395  &manbugs;
 396
 397 </refentry>