doc/apt-cache.8.xml

   1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
   2 <!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
   3   "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
   4 <!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent"> %aptent;
   5 <!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent"> %aptverbatiment;
   6 <!ENTITY % aptvendor SYSTEM "apt-vendor.ent"> %aptvendor;
   7 ]>
   8
   9 <refentry>
  10
  11  <refentryinfo>
  12    &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
  13    &apt-author.team;
  14    &apt-email;
  15    &apt-product;
  16    <!-- The last update date -->
  17    <date>2012-06-09T00:00:00Z</date>
  18  </refentryinfo>
  19
  20  <refmeta>
  21    <refentrytitle>apt-cache</refentrytitle>
  22    <manvolnum>8</manvolnum>
  23    <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
  24  </refmeta>
  25
  26  <!-- Man page title -->
  27  <refnamediv>
  28     <refname>apt-cache</refname>
  29     <refpurpose>query the APT cache</refpurpose>
  30  </refnamediv>
  31
  32  &synopsis-command-apt-cache;
  33
  34  <refsect1><title>Description</title>
  35    <para><command>apt-cache</command> performs a variety of operations on APT's package
  36    cache. <command>apt-cache</command> does not manipulate the state of the system
  37    but does provide operations to search and generate interesting output
  38    from the package metadata.</para>
  39
  40    <para>Unless the <option>-h</option>, or <option>--help</option> option is given, one of the
  41    commands below must be present.</para>
  42
  43    <variablelist>
  44      <varlistentry><term><option>gencaches</option></term>
  45      <listitem><para><literal>gencaches</literal> creates APT's package cache. This is done
  46      implicitly by all commands needing this cache if it is missing or outdated.</para></listitem>
  47      </varlistentry>
  48
  49      <varlistentry><term><option>showpkg</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
  50      <listitem><para><literal>showpkg</literal> displays information about the packages listed on the
  51      command line. Remaining arguments are package names. The available
  52      versions and reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed, as
  53      well as forward dependencies for each version. Forward (normal)
  54      dependencies are those packages upon which the package in question
  55      depends; reverse dependencies are those packages that depend upon the
  56      package in question. Thus, forward dependencies must be satisfied for a
  57      package, but reverse dependencies need not be.
  58      For instance, <command>apt-cache showpkg libreadline2</command> would produce
  59      output similar to the following:</para>
  60
  61 <informalexample><programlisting>
  62 Package: libreadline2
  63 Versions: 2.1-12(/var/state/apt/lists/foo_Packages),
  64 Reverse Depends:
  65   libreadlineg2,libreadline2
  66   libreadline2-altdev,libreadline2
  67 Dependencies:
  68 2.1-12 - libc5 (2 5.4.0-0) ncurses3.0 (0 (null))
  69 Provides:
  70 2.1-12 -
  71 Reverse Provides:
  72 </programlisting></informalexample>
  73
  74      <para>Thus it may be seen that libreadline2, version 2.1-12, depends on
  75      libc5 and ncurses3.0 which must be installed for libreadline2 to work.
  76      In turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev depend on libreadline2. If
  77      libreadline2 is installed, libc5 and ncurses3.0 (and ldso) must also be
  78      installed; libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev do not have to be
  79      installed. For the specific meaning of the remainder of the output it
  80      is best to consult the apt source code.</para></listitem>
  81      </varlistentry>
  82
  83      <varlistentry><term><option>stats</option></term><listitem><para><literal>stats</literal> displays some statistics about the cache.
  84      No further arguments are expected. Statistics reported are:
  85      <itemizedlist>
  86        <listitem><para><literal>Total package names</literal> is the number of package names found
  87        in the cache.</para>
  88        </listitem>
  89
  90        <listitem><para><literal>Normal packages</literal> is the number of regular, ordinary package
  91        names; these are packages that bear a one-to-one correspondence between
  92        their names and the names used by other packages for them in
  93        dependencies. The majority of packages fall into this category.</para>
  94        </listitem>
  95
  96        <listitem><para><literal>Pure virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that exist
  97        only as a virtual package name; that is, packages only "provide" the
  98        virtual package name, and no package actually uses the name. For
  99        instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian system is a
 100        pure virtual package; several packages provide "mail-transport-agent",
 101        but there is no package named "mail-transport-agent".</para>
 102        </listitem>
 103
 104        <listitem><para><literal>Single virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages with only
 105        one package providing a particular virtual package. For example, in the
 106        Debian system, "X11-text-viewer" is a virtual package, but
 107        only one package, xless, provides "X11-text-viewer".</para>
 108        </listitem>
 109
 110        <listitem><para><literal>Mixed virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that either
 111        provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual package name
 112        as the package name. For instance, in the Debian system,
 113        "debconf" is both an actual package, and provided by the debconf-tiny
 114        package.</para>
 115        </listitem>
 116
 117        <listitem><para><literal>Missing</literal> is the number of package names that were referenced in
 118        a dependency but were not provided by any package. Missing packages may
 119        be an evidence if a full distribution is not accessed, or if a package
 120        (real or virtual) has been dropped from the distribution. Usually they
 121        are referenced from Conflicts or Breaks statements.</para>
 122        </listitem>
 123
 124        <listitem><para><literal>Total distinct</literal> versions is the number of package versions
 125        found in the cache. If more than one distribution is being accessed
 126        (for instance, "stable" and "unstable"), this value
 127        can be considerably larger than the number of total package names.</para>
 128        </listitem>
 129
 130        <listitem><para><literal>Total dependencies</literal> is the number of dependency relationships
 131        claimed by all of the packages in the cache.</para>
 132        </listitem>
 133      </itemizedlist>
 134      </para></listitem>
 135      </varlistentry>
 136
 137      <varlistentry><term><option>showsrc</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 138      <listitem><para><literal>showsrc</literal> displays all the
 139      source package records that match the given package names. All
 140      versions are shown, as well as all records that declare the name
 141      to be a binary package. Use <option>--only-source</option> to
 142      display only source package names.
 143      </para></listitem>
 144      </varlistentry>
 145
 146      <varlistentry><term><option>dump</option></term>
 147      <listitem><para><literal>dump</literal> shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is
 148      primarily for debugging.</para></listitem>
 149      </varlistentry>
 150
 151      <varlistentry><term><option>dumpavail</option></term>
 152      <listitem><para><literal>dumpavail</literal> prints out an available list to stdout. This is
 153      suitable for use with &dpkg; and is used by the &dselect; method.</para></listitem>
 154      </varlistentry>
 155
 156      <varlistentry><term><option>unmet</option></term>
 157      <listitem><para><literal>unmet</literal> displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the
 158      package cache.</para></listitem>
 159      </varlistentry>
 160
 161      <varlistentry><term><option>show</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 162      <listitem><para><literal>show</literal> performs a function similar to
 163      <command>dpkg --print-avail</command>; it displays the package records for the
 164      named packages.</para></listitem>
 165      </varlistentry>
 166
 167      <varlistentry><term><option>search</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-regex;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 168      <listitem><para><literal>search</literal> performs a full text search on all available package
 169      lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see &regex;.
 170      It searches the package names and the
 171      descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out
 172      the package name and the short description, including virtual package
 173      names.
 174      If <option>--full</option> is given
 175      then output identical to <literal>show</literal> is produced for each matched
 176      package, and if <option>--names-only</option> is given then the long description
 177      is not searched, only the package name and provided packages are.</para>
 178      <para>
 179      Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that
 180      are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
 181      </varlistentry>
 182
 183      <varlistentry><term><option>depends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 184      <listitem><para><literal>depends</literal> shows a listing of each dependency a package has
 185      and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.</para></listitem>
 186      </varlistentry>
 187
 188      <varlistentry><term><option>rdepends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 189      <listitem><para><literal>rdepends</literal> shows a listing of each reverse dependency a
 190       package has.</para></listitem>
 191      </varlistentry>
 192
 193      <varlistentry><term><option>pkgnames</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-prefix;</replaceable></optional></term>
 194      <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package APT knows. The optional
 195      argument is a prefix match to filter the name list. The output is suitable
 196      for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated
 197      extremely quickly. This command is best used with the
 198      <option>--generate</option> option.</para>
 199      <para>Note that a package which APT knows of is not necessarily available to download,
 200      installable or installed, e.g. virtual packages are also listed in the generated list.
 201      </para></listitem>
 202      </varlistentry>
 203
 204      <varlistentry><term><option>dotty</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 205      <listitem><para><literal>dotty</literal> takes a list of packages on the command line and
 206      generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
 207      <ulink url="http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/">GraphViz</ulink>
 208      package. The result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the
 209      relationships between the packages. By default the given packages will
 210      trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very large graph.
 211      To limit the output to only the packages listed on the command line,
 212      set the <literal>APT::Cache::GivenOnly</literal> option.</para>
 213
 214      <para>The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes,
 215      pure virtual packages are triangles, mixed virtual packages are diamonds,
 216      missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped
 217      (leaf packages), blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
 218
 219      <para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
 220      </varlistentry>
 221
 222      <varlistentry><term><option>xvcg</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 223          <listitem><para>The same as <literal>dotty</literal>, only for xvcg from the
 224          <ulink url="http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html">VCG tool</ulink>.
 225          </para></listitem></varlistentry>
 226
 227          <varlistentry><term><option>policy</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</optional></term>
 228      <listitem><para><literal>policy</literal> is meant to help debug issues relating to the
 229      preferences file. With no arguments it will print out the
 230      priorities of each source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information
 231      about the priority selection of the named package.</para></listitem>
 232      </varlistentry>
 233
 234      <varlistentry><term><option>madison</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 235      <listitem><para><literal>apt-cache</literal>'s <literal>madison</literal> command attempts to mimic
 236      the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian
 237      archive management tool, <literal>madison</literal>.  It displays
 238      available versions of a package in a tabular format.  Unlike the
 239      original <literal>madison</literal>, it can only display information for
 240      the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists
 241      (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>).</para></listitem>
 242      </varlistentry>
 243    </variablelist>
 244  </refsect1>
 245
 246  <refsect1><title>options</title>
 247    &apt-cmdblurb;
 248
 249    <variablelist>
 250      <varlistentry><term><option>-p</option></term><term><option>--pkg-cache</option></term>
 251      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is the
 252      primary cache used by all operations.
 253      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::pkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 254      </varlistentry>
 255
 256      <varlistentry><term><option>-s</option></term><term><option>--src-cache</option></term>
 257      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the source cache. The source is used only by
 258      <literal>gencaches</literal> and it stores a parsed version of the package
 259      information from remote sources. When building the package cache the
 260      source cache is used to avoid reparsing all of the package files.
 261      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 262      </varlistentry>
 263
 264      <varlistentry><term><option>-q</option></term><term><option>--quiet</option></term>
 265      <listitem><para>Quiet; produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress indicators.
 266      More q's will produce more quietness up to a maximum of 2. You can also use
 267      <option>-q=#</option> to set the quietness level, overriding the configuration file.
 268      Configuration Item: <literal>quiet</literal>.</para></listitem>
 269      </varlistentry>
 270
 271      <varlistentry><term><option>-i</option></term><term><option>--important</option></term>
 272      <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with <literal>unmet</literal>
 273      and <literal>depends</literal>. Causes only Depends and
 274      Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
 275      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Important</literal>.</para></listitem>
 276      </varlistentry>
 277
 278      <varlistentry><term><option>--no-pre-depends</option></term>
 279                    <term><option>--no-depends</option></term>
 280                    <term><option>--no-recommends</option></term>
 281                    <term><option>--no-suggests</option></term>
 282                    <term><option>--no-conflicts</option></term>
 283                    <term><option>--no-breaks</option></term>
 284                    <term><option>--no-replaces</option></term>
 285                    <term><option>--no-enhances</option></term>
 286                    <listitem><para>Per default the <command>depends</command> and
 287      <command>rdepends</command> print all dependencies. This can be tweaked with
 288      these flags which will omit the specified dependency type.
 289      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Show<replaceable>DependencyType</replaceable></literal>
 290      e.g. <literal>APT::Cache::ShowRecommends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 291      </varlistentry>
 292
 293      <varlistentry><term><option>--implicit</option></term>
 294         <listitem><para>Per default <command>depends</command> and <command>rdepends</command>
 295               print only dependencies explicitly expressed in the metadata. With this flag
 296               it will also show dependencies implicitely added based on the encountered data.
 297               A <literal>Conflicts: foo</literal> e.g. expresses implicitely that this package
 298               also conflicts with the package foo from any other architecture.
 299               Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowImplicit</literal>.
 300         </para></listitem>
 301      </varlistentry>
 302
 303      <varlistentry><term><option>-f</option></term><term><option>--full</option></term>
 304      <listitem><para>Print full package records when searching.
 305      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowFull</literal>.</para></listitem>
 306      </varlistentry>
 307
 308      <varlistentry><term><option>-a</option></term><term><option>--all-versions</option></term>
 309      <listitem><para>Print full records for all available versions. This is the
 310      default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-all-versions</option>.
 311      If <option>--no-all-versions</option> is specified, only the candidate version
 312      will be displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
 313      This option is only applicable to  the <literal>show</literal> command.
 314      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllVersions</literal>.</para></listitem>
 315      </varlistentry>
 316
 317      <varlistentry><term><option>-g</option></term><term><option>--generate</option></term>
 318      <listitem><para>Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use the cache
 319      as it is. This is the default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-generate</option>.
 320      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Generate</literal>.</para></listitem>
 321      </varlistentry>
 322
 323      <varlistentry><term><option>--names-only</option></term><term><option>-n</option></term>
 324      <listitem><para>Only search on the package and provided package names, not the long descriptions.
 325      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::NamesOnly</literal>.</para></listitem>
 326      </varlistentry>
 327
 328      <varlistentry><term><option>--all-names</option></term>
 329      <listitem><para>Make <literal>pkgnames</literal> print all names, including virtual packages
 330      and missing dependencies.
 331      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllNames</literal>.</para></listitem>
 332      </varlistentry>
 333
 334      <varlistentry><term><option>--recurse</option></term>
 335      <listitem><para>Make <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> recursive so
 336      that all packages mentioned are printed once.
 337      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::RecurseDepends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 338      </varlistentry>
 339
 340       <varlistentry><term><option>--installed</option></term>
 341       <listitem><para>
 342       Limit the output of <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> to
 343       packages which are currently installed.
 344       Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Installed</literal>.</para></listitem>
 345       </varlistentry>
 346
 347      &apt-commonoptions;
 348
 349    </variablelist>
 350  </refsect1>
 351
 352  <refsect1><title>Files</title>
 353    <variablelist>
 354      &file-sourceslist;
 355      &file-statelists;
 356    </variablelist>
 357  </refsect1>
 358
 359  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 360    <para>&apt-conf;, &sources-list;, &apt-get;
 361    </para>
 362  </refsect1>
 363
 364  <refsect1><title>Diagnostics</title>
 365    <para><command>apt-cache</command> returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
 366    </para>
 367  </refsect1>
 368
 369  &manbugs;
 370
 371 </refentry>