doc/apt-cache.8.xml

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   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 <!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>2012-05-21T00:00:00Z</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>query the APT cache</refpurpose>
  34  </refnamediv>
  35
  36  &synopsis-command-apt-cache;
  37
  38  <refsect1><title>Description</title>
  39    <para><command>apt-cache</command> performs a variety of operations on APT's package
  40    cache. <command>apt-cache</command> does not manipulate the state of the system
  41    but does provide operations to search and generate interesting output
  42    from the package metadata.</para>
  43
  44    <para>Unless the <option>-h</option>, or <option>--help</option> option is given, one of the
  45    commands below must be present.</para>
  46
  47    <variablelist>
  48      <varlistentry><term><option>gencaches</option></term>
  49      <listitem><para><literal>gencaches</literal> creates APT's package cache. This is done
  50      implicitly by all commands needing this cache if it is missing or outdated.</para></listitem>
  51      </varlistentry>
  52
  53      <varlistentry><term><option>showpkg</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
  54      <listitem><para><literal>showpkg</literal> displays information about the packages listed on the
  55      command line. Remaining arguments are package names. The available
  56      versions and reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed, as
  57      well as forward dependencies for each version. Forward (normal)
  58      dependencies are those packages upon which the package in question
  59      depends; reverse dependencies are those packages that depend upon the
  60      package in question. Thus, forward dependencies must be satisfied for a
  61      package, but reverse dependencies need not be.
  62      For instance, <command>apt-cache showpkg libreadline2</command> would produce
  63      output similar to the following:</para>
  64
  65 <informalexample><programlisting>
  66 Package: libreadline2
  67 Versions: 2.1-12(/var/state/apt/lists/foo_Packages),
  68 Reverse Depends:
  69   libreadlineg2,libreadline2
  70   libreadline2-altdev,libreadline2
  71 Dependencies:
  72 2.1-12 - libc5 (2 5.4.0-0) ncurses3.0 (0 (null))
  73 Provides:
  74 2.1-12 -
  75 Reverse Provides:
  76 </programlisting></informalexample>
  77
  78      <para>Thus it may be seen that libreadline2, version 2.1-12, depends on
  79      libc5 and ncurses3.0 which must be installed for libreadline2 to work.
  80      In turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev depend on libreadline2. If
  81      libreadline2 is installed, libc5 and ncurses3.0 (and ldso) must also be
  82      installed; libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev do not have to be
  83      installed. For the specific meaning of the remainder of the output it
  84      is best to consult the apt source code.</para></listitem>
  85      </varlistentry>
  86
  87      <varlistentry><term><option>stats</option></term><listitem><para><literal>stats</literal> displays some statistics about the cache.
  88      No further arguments are expected. Statistics reported are:
  89      <itemizedlist>
  90        <listitem><para><literal>Total package names</literal> is the number of package names found
  91        in the cache.</para>
  92        </listitem>
  93
  94        <listitem><para><literal>Normal packages</literal> is the number of regular, ordinary package
  95        names; these are packages that bear a one-to-one correspondence between
  96        their names and the names used by other packages for them in
  97        dependencies. The majority of packages fall into this category.</para>
  98        </listitem>
  99
 100        <listitem><para><literal>Pure virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that exist
 101        only as a virtual package name; that is, packages only "provide" the
 102        virtual package name, and no package actually uses the name. For
 103        instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian GNU/Linux system is a
 104        pure virtual package; several packages provide "mail-transport-agent",
 105        but there is no package named "mail-transport-agent".</para>
 106        </listitem>
 107
 108        <listitem><para><literal>Single virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages with only
 109        one package providing a particular virtual package. For example, in the
 110        Debian GNU/Linux system, "X11-text-viewer" is a virtual package, but
 111        only one package, xless, provides "X11-text-viewer".</para>
 112        </listitem>
 113
 114        <listitem><para><literal>Mixed virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that either
 115        provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual package name
 116        as the package name. For instance, in the Debian GNU/Linux system,
 117        "debconf" is both an actual package, and provided by the debconf-tiny
 118        package.</para>
 119        </listitem>
 120
 121        <listitem><para><literal>Missing</literal> is the number of package names that were referenced in
 122        a dependency but were not provided by any package. Missing packages may
 123        be an evidence if a full distribution is not accessed, or if a package
 124        (real or virtual) has been dropped from the distribution. Usually they
 125        are referenced from Conflicts or Breaks statements.</para>
 126        </listitem>
 127
 128        <listitem><para><literal>Total distinct</literal> versions is the number of package versions
 129        found in the cache; this value is therefore at least equal to the
 130        number of total package names. If more than one distribution (both
 131        "stable" and "unstable", for instance), is being accessed, this value
 132        can be considerably larger than the number of total package names.</para>
 133        </listitem>
 134
 135        <listitem><para><literal>Total dependencies</literal> is the number of dependency relationships
 136        claimed by all of the packages in the cache.</para>
 137        </listitem>
 138      </itemizedlist>
 139      </para></listitem>
 140      </varlistentry>
 141
 142      <varlistentry><term><option>showsrc</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 143      <listitem><para><literal>showsrc</literal> displays all the source package records that match
 144      the given package names. All versions are shown, as well as all
 145      records that declare the name to be a Binary.</para></listitem>
 146      </varlistentry>
 147
 148      <varlistentry><term><option>dump</option></term>
 149      <listitem><para><literal>dump</literal> shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is
 150      primarily for debugging.</para></listitem>
 151      </varlistentry>
 152
 153      <varlistentry><term><option>dumpavail</option></term>
 154      <listitem><para><literal>dumpavail</literal> prints out an available list to stdout. This is
 155      suitable for use with &dpkg; and is used by the &dselect; method.</para></listitem>
 156      </varlistentry>
 157
 158      <varlistentry><term><option>unmet</option></term>
 159      <listitem><para><literal>unmet</literal> displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the
 160      package cache.</para></listitem>
 161      </varlistentry>
 162
 163      <varlistentry><term><option>show</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 164      <listitem><para><literal>show</literal> performs a function similar to
 165      <command>dpkg --print-avail</command>; it displays the package records for the
 166      named packages.</para></listitem>
 167      </varlistentry>
 168
 169      <varlistentry><term><option>search</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-regex;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 170      <listitem><para><literal>search</literal> performs a full text search on all available package
 171      lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see &regex;.
 172      It searches the package names and the
 173      descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out
 174      the package name and the short description, including virtual package
 175      names.
 176      If <option>--full</option> is given
 177      then output identical to <literal>show</literal> is produced for each matched
 178      package, and if <option>--names-only</option> is given then the long description
 179      is not searched, only the package name is.</para>
 180      <para>
 181      Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that
 182      are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
 183      </varlistentry>
 184
 185      <varlistentry><term><option>depends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 186      <listitem><para><literal>depends</literal> shows a listing of each dependency a package has
 187      and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.</para></listitem>
 188      </varlistentry>
 189
 190      <varlistentry><term><option>rdepends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 191      <listitem><para><literal>rdepends</literal> shows a listing of each reverse dependency a
 192       package has.</para></listitem>
 193      </varlistentry>
 194
 195      <varlistentry><term><option>pkgnames</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-prefix;</replaceable></optional></term>
 196      <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package APT knows. The optional
 197      argument is a prefix match to filter the name list. The output is suitable
 198      for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated
 199      extremely quickly. This command is best used with the
 200      <option>--generate</option> option.</para>
 201      <para>Note that a package which APT knows of is not necessarily available to download,
 202      installable or installed, e.g. virtual packages are also listed in the generated list.
 203      </para></listitem>
 204      </varlistentry>
 205
 206      <varlistentry><term><option>dotty</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 207      <listitem><para><literal>dotty</literal> takes a list of packages on the command line and
 208      generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
 209      <ulink url="http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/">GraphViz</ulink>
 210      package. The result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the
 211      relationships between the packages. By default the given packages will
 212      trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very large graph.
 213      To limit the output to only the packages listed on the command line,
 214      set the <literal>APT::Cache::GivenOnly</literal> option.</para>
 215
 216      <para>The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes,
 217      pure provides are triangles, mixed provides are diamonds,
 218      missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped
 219      [leaf packages], blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
 220
 221      <para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
 222      </varlistentry>
 223
 224      <varlistentry><term><option>xvcg</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 225          <listitem><para>The same as <literal>dotty</literal>, only for xvcg from the
 226          <ulink url="http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html">VCG tool</ulink>.
 227          </para></listitem></varlistentry>
 228
 229          <varlistentry><term><option>policy</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</optional></term>
 230      <listitem><para><literal>policy</literal> is meant to help debug issues relating to the
 231      preferences file. With no arguments it will print out the
 232      priorities of each source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information
 233      about the priority selection of the named package.</para></listitem>
 234      </varlistentry>
 235
 236      <varlistentry><term><option>madison</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 237      <listitem><para><literal>apt-cache</literal>'s <literal>madison</literal> command attempts to mimic
 238      the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian
 239      archive management tool, <literal>madison</literal>.  It displays
 240      available versions of a package in a tabular format.  Unlike the
 241      original <literal>madison</literal>, it can only display information for
 242      the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists
 243      (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>).</para></listitem>
 244      </varlistentry>
 245    </variablelist>
 246  </refsect1>
 247
 248  <refsect1><title>options</title>
 249    &apt-cmdblurb;
 250
 251    <variablelist>
 252      <varlistentry><term><option>-p</option></term><term><option>--pkg-cache</option></term>
 253      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is the
 254      primary cache used by all operations.
 255      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::pkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 256      </varlistentry>
 257
 258      <varlistentry><term><option>-s</option></term><term><option>--src-cache</option></term>
 259      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the source cache. The source is used only by
 260      <literal>gencaches</literal> and it stores a parsed version of the package
 261      information from remote sources. When building the package cache the
 262      source cache is used to avoid reparsing all of the package files.
 263      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 264      </varlistentry>
 265
 266      <varlistentry><term><option>-q</option></term><term><option>--quiet</option></term>
 267      <listitem><para>Quiet; produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress indicators.
 268      More q's will produce more quietness up to a maximum of 2. You can also use
 269      <option>-q=#</option> to set the quietness level, overriding the configuration file.
 270      Configuration Item: <literal>quiet</literal>.</para></listitem>
 271      </varlistentry>
 272
 273      <varlistentry><term><option>-i</option></term><term><option>--important</option></term>
 274      <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with unmet and depends. Causes only Depends and
 275      Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
 276      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Important</literal>.</para></listitem>
 277      </varlistentry>
 278
 279      <varlistentry><term><option>--no-pre-depends</option></term>
 280                    <term><option>--no-depends</option></term>
 281                    <term><option>--no-recommends</option></term>
 282                    <term><option>--no-suggests</option></term>
 283                    <term><option>--no-conflicts</option></term>
 284                    <term><option>--no-breaks</option></term>
 285                    <term><option>--no-replaces</option></term>
 286                    <term><option>--no-enhances</option></term>
 287                    <listitem><para>Per default the <literal>depends</literal> and
 288      <literal>rdepends</literal> print all dependencies. This can be tweaked with
 289      these flags which will omit the specified dependency type.
 290      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Show<replaceable>DependencyType</replaceable></literal>
 291      e.g. <literal>APT::Cache::ShowRecommends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 292      </varlistentry>
 293      <varlistentry><term><option>-f</option></term><term><option>--full</option></term>
 294      <listitem><para>Print full package records when searching.
 295      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowFull</literal>.</para></listitem>
 296      </varlistentry>
 297
 298      <varlistentry><term><option>-a</option></term><term><option>--all-versions</option></term>
 299      <listitem><para>Print full records for all available versions. This is the
 300      default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-all-versions</option>.
 301      If <option>--no-all-versions</option> is specified, only the candidate version
 302      will displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
 303      This option is only applicable to  the <literal>show</literal> command.
 304      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllVersions</literal>.</para></listitem>
 305      </varlistentry>
 306
 307      <varlistentry><term><option>-g</option></term><term><option>--generate</option></term>
 308      <listitem><para>Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use the cache
 309      as it is. This is the default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-generate</option>.
 310      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Generate</literal>.</para></listitem>
 311      </varlistentry>
 312
 313      <varlistentry><term><option>--names-only</option></term><term><option>-n</option></term>
 314      <listitem><para>Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions.
 315      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::NamesOnly</literal>.</para></listitem>
 316      </varlistentry>
 317
 318      <varlistentry><term><option>--all-names</option></term>
 319      <listitem><para>Make <literal>pkgnames</literal> print all names, including virtual packages
 320      and missing dependencies.
 321      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllNames</literal>.</para></listitem>
 322      </varlistentry>
 323
 324      <varlistentry><term><option>--recurse</option></term>
 325      <listitem><para>Make <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> recursive so
 326      that all packages mentioned are printed once.
 327      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::RecurseDepends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 328      </varlistentry>
 329
 330       <varlistentry><term><option>--installed</option></term>
 331       <listitem><para>
 332       Limit the output of <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> to
 333       packages which are currently installed.
 334       Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Installed</literal>.</para></listitem>
 335       </varlistentry>
 336
 337      &apt-commonoptions;
 338
 339    </variablelist>
 340  </refsect1>
 341
 342  <refsect1><title>Files</title>
 343    <variablelist>
 344      &file-sourceslist;
 345      &file-statelists;
 346    </variablelist>
 347  </refsect1>
 348
 349  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 350    <para>&apt-conf;, &sources-list;, &apt-get;
 351    </para>
 352  </refsect1>
 353
 354  <refsect1><title>Diagnostics</title>
 355    <para><command>apt-cache</command> returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
 356    </para>
 357  </refsect1>
 358
 359  &manbugs;
 360
 361 </refentry>