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  46      implicitly by all commands needing this cache if it is missing or outdated.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; this value is therefore at least equal to the
 126        number of total package names. If more than one distribution is being accessed
 127        (for instance, "stable" and "unstable"), this value
 128        can be considerably larger than the number of total package names.</para>
 129        </listitem>
 130
 131        <listitem><para><literal>Total dependencies</literal> is the number of dependency relationships
 132        claimed by all of the packages in the cache.</para>
 133        </listitem>
 134      </itemizedlist>
 135      </para></listitem>
 136      </varlistentry>
 137
 138      <varlistentry><term><option>showsrc</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 139      <listitem><para><literal>showsrc</literal> displays all the source package records that match
 140      the given package names. All versions are shown, as well as all
 141      records that declare the name to be a binary package.</para></listitem>
 142      </varlistentry>
 143
 144      <varlistentry><term><option>dump</option></term>
 145      <listitem><para><literal>dump</literal> shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is
 146      primarily for debugging.</para></listitem>
 147      </varlistentry>
 148
 149      <varlistentry><term><option>dumpavail</option></term>
 150      <listitem><para><literal>dumpavail</literal> prints out an available list to stdout. This is
 151      suitable for use with &dpkg; and is used by the &dselect; method.</para></listitem>
 152      </varlistentry>
 153
 154      <varlistentry><term><option>unmet</option></term>
 155      <listitem><para><literal>unmet</literal> displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the
 156      package cache.</para></listitem>
 157      </varlistentry>
 158
 159      <varlistentry><term><option>show</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 160      <listitem><para><literal>show</literal> performs a function similar to
 161      <command>dpkg --print-avail</command>; it displays the package records for the
 162      named packages.</para></listitem>
 163      </varlistentry>
 164
 165      <varlistentry><term><option>search</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-regex;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 166      <listitem><para><literal>search</literal> performs a full text search on all available package
 167      lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see &regex;.
 168      It searches the package names and the
 169      descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out
 170      the package name and the short description, including virtual package
 171      names.
 172      If <option>--full</option> is given
 173      then output identical to <literal>show</literal> is produced for each matched
 174      package, and if <option>--names-only</option> is given then the long description
 175      is not searched, only the package name is.</para>
 176      <para>
 177      Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that
 178      are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
 179      </varlistentry>
 180
 181      <varlistentry><term><option>depends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 182      <listitem><para><literal>depends</literal> shows a listing of each dependency a package has
 183      and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.</para></listitem>
 184      </varlistentry>
 185
 186      <varlistentry><term><option>rdepends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 187      <listitem><para><literal>rdepends</literal> shows a listing of each reverse dependency a
 188       package has.</para></listitem>
 189      </varlistentry>
 190
 191      <varlistentry><term><option>pkgnames</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-prefix;</replaceable></optional></term>
 192      <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package APT knows. The optional
 193      argument is a prefix match to filter the name list. The output is suitable
 194      for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated
 195      extremely quickly. This command is best used with the
 196      <option>--generate</option> option.</para>
 197      <para>Note that a package which APT knows of is not necessarily available to download,
 198      installable or installed, e.g. virtual packages are also listed in the generated list.
 199      </para></listitem>
 200      </varlistentry>
 201
 202      <varlistentry><term><option>dotty</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 203      <listitem><para><literal>dotty</literal> takes a list of packages on the command line and
 204      generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
 205      <ulink url="http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/">GraphViz</ulink>
 206      package. The result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the
 207      relationships between the packages. By default the given packages will
 208      trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very large graph.
 209      To limit the output to only the packages listed on the command line,
 210      set the <literal>APT::Cache::GivenOnly</literal> option.</para>
 211
 212      <para>The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes,
 213      pure virtual packages are triangles, mixed virtual packages are diamonds,
 214      missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped
 215      (leaf packages), blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
 216
 217      <para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
 218      </varlistentry>
 219
 220      <varlistentry><term><option>xvcg</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 221          <listitem><para>The same as <literal>dotty</literal>, only for xvcg from the
 222          <ulink url="http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html">VCG tool</ulink>.
 223          </para></listitem></varlistentry>
 224
 225          <varlistentry><term><option>policy</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</optional></term>
 226      <listitem><para><literal>policy</literal> is meant to help debug issues relating to the
 227      preferences file. With no arguments it will print out the
 228      priorities of each source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information
 229      about the priority selection of the named package.</para></listitem>
 230      </varlistentry>
 231
 232      <varlistentry><term><option>madison</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 233      <listitem><para><literal>apt-cache</literal>'s <literal>madison</literal> command attempts to mimic
 234      the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian
 235      archive management tool, <literal>madison</literal>.  It displays
 236      available versions of a package in a tabular format.  Unlike the
 237      original <literal>madison</literal>, it can only display information for
 238      the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists
 239      (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>).</para></listitem>
 240      </varlistentry>
 241    </variablelist>
 242  </refsect1>
 243
 244  <refsect1><title>options</title>
 245    &apt-cmdblurb;
 246
 247    <variablelist>
 248      <varlistentry><term><option>-p</option></term><term><option>--pkg-cache</option></term>
 249      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is the
 250      primary cache used by all operations.
 251      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::pkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 252      </varlistentry>
 253
 254      <varlistentry><term><option>-s</option></term><term><option>--src-cache</option></term>
 255      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the source cache. The source is used only by
 256      <literal>gencaches</literal> and it stores a parsed version of the package
 257      information from remote sources. When building the package cache the
 258      source cache is used to avoid reparsing all of the package files.
 259      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 260      </varlistentry>
 261
 262      <varlistentry><term><option>-q</option></term><term><option>--quiet</option></term>
 263      <listitem><para>Quiet; produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress indicators.
 264      More q's will produce more quietness up to a maximum of 2. You can also use
 265      <option>-q=#</option> to set the quietness level, overriding the configuration file.
 266      Configuration Item: <literal>quiet</literal>.</para></listitem>
 267      </varlistentry>
 268
 269      <varlistentry><term><option>-i</option></term><term><option>--important</option></term>
 270      <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with <literal>unmet</literal>
 271      and <literal>depends</literal>. Causes only Depends and
 272      Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
 273      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Important</literal>.</para></listitem>
 274      </varlistentry>
 275
 276      <varlistentry><term><option>--no-pre-depends</option></term>
 277                    <term><option>--no-depends</option></term>
 278                    <term><option>--no-recommends</option></term>
 279                    <term><option>--no-suggests</option></term>
 280                    <term><option>--no-conflicts</option></term>
 281                    <term><option>--no-breaks</option></term>
 282                    <term><option>--no-replaces</option></term>
 283                    <term><option>--no-enhances</option></term>
 284                    <listitem><para>Per default the <literal>depends</literal> and
 285      <literal>rdepends</literal> print all dependencies. This can be tweaked with
 286      these flags which will omit the specified dependency type.
 287      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Show<replaceable>DependencyType</replaceable></literal>
 288      e.g. <literal>APT::Cache::ShowRecommends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 289      </varlistentry>
 290      <varlistentry><term><option>-f</option></term><term><option>--full</option></term>
 291      <listitem><para>Print full package records when searching.
 292      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowFull</literal>.</para></listitem>
 293      </varlistentry>
 294
 295      <varlistentry><term><option>-a</option></term><term><option>--all-versions</option></term>
 296      <listitem><para>Print full records for all available versions. This is the
 297      default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-all-versions</option>.
 298      If <option>--no-all-versions</option> is specified, only the candidate version
 299      will be displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
 300      This option is only applicable to  the <literal>show</literal> command.
 301      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllVersions</literal>.</para></listitem>
 302      </varlistentry>
 303
 304      <varlistentry><term><option>-g</option></term><term><option>--generate</option></term>
 305      <listitem><para>Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use the cache
 306      as it is. This is the default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-generate</option>.
 307      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Generate</literal>.</para></listitem>
 308      </varlistentry>
 309
 310      <varlistentry><term><option>--names-only</option></term><term><option>-n</option></term>
 311      <listitem><para>Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions.
 312      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::NamesOnly</literal>.</para></listitem>
 313      </varlistentry>
 314
 315      <varlistentry><term><option>--all-names</option></term>
 316      <listitem><para>Make <literal>pkgnames</literal> print all names, including virtual packages
 317      and missing dependencies.
 318      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllNames</literal>.</para></listitem>
 319      </varlistentry>
 320
 321      <varlistentry><term><option>--recurse</option></term>
 322      <listitem><para>Make <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> recursive so
 323      that all packages mentioned are printed once.
 324      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::RecurseDepends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 325      </varlistentry>
 326
 327       <varlistentry><term><option>--installed</option></term>
 328       <listitem><para>
 329       Limit the output of <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> to
 330       packages which are currently installed.
 331       Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Installed</literal>.</para></listitem>
 332       </varlistentry>
 333
 334      &apt-commonoptions;
 335
 336    </variablelist>
 337  </refsect1>
 338
 339  <refsect1><title>Files</title>
 340    <variablelist>
 341      &file-sourceslist;
 342      &file-statelists;
 343    </variablelist>
 344  </refsect1>
 345
 346  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 347    <para>&apt-conf;, &sources-list;, &apt-get;
 348    </para>
 349  </refsect1>
 350
 351  <refsect1><title>Diagnostics</title>
 352    <para><command>apt-cache</command> returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
 353    </para>
 354  </refsect1>
 355
 356  &manbugs;
 357
 358 </refentry>