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  46      implicitly by all commands needing this cache if it is missing or outdated.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 source package records that match
 139      the given package names. All versions are shown, as well as all
 140      records that declare the name to be a binary package.</para></listitem>
 141      </varlistentry>
 142
 143      <varlistentry><term><option>dump</option></term>
 144      <listitem><para><literal>dump</literal> shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is
 145      primarily for debugging.</para></listitem>
 146      </varlistentry>
 147
 148      <varlistentry><term><option>dumpavail</option></term>
 149      <listitem><para><literal>dumpavail</literal> prints out an available list to stdout. This is
 150      suitable for use with &dpkg; and is used by the &dselect; method.</para></listitem>
 151      </varlistentry>
 152
 153      <varlistentry><term><option>unmet</option></term>
 154      <listitem><para><literal>unmet</literal> displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the
 155      package cache.</para></listitem>
 156      </varlistentry>
 157
 158      <varlistentry><term><option>show</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 159      <listitem><para><literal>show</literal> performs a function similar to
 160      <command>dpkg --print-avail</command>; it displays the package records for the
 161      named packages.</para></listitem>
 162      </varlistentry>
 163
 164      <varlistentry><term><option>search</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-regex;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 165      <listitem><para><literal>search</literal> performs a full text search on all available package
 166      lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see &regex;.
 167      It searches the package names and the
 168      descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out
 169      the package name and the short description, including virtual package
 170      names.
 171      If <option>--full</option> is given
 172      then output identical to <literal>show</literal> is produced for each matched
 173      package, and if <option>--names-only</option> is given then the long description
 174      is not searched, only the package name and provided packages are.</para>
 175      <para>
 176      Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that
 177      are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
 178      </varlistentry>
 179
 180      <varlistentry><term><option>depends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 181      <listitem><para><literal>depends</literal> shows a listing of each dependency a package has
 182      and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.</para></listitem>
 183      </varlistentry>
 184
 185      <varlistentry><term><option>rdepends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 186      <listitem><para><literal>rdepends</literal> shows a listing of each reverse dependency a
 187       package has.</para></listitem>
 188      </varlistentry>
 189
 190      <varlistentry><term><option>pkgnames</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-prefix;</replaceable></optional></term>
 191      <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package APT knows. The optional
 192      argument is a prefix match to filter the name list. The output is suitable
 193      for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated
 194      extremely quickly. This command is best used with the
 195      <option>--generate</option> option.</para>
 196      <para>Note that a package which APT knows of is not necessarily available to download,
 197      installable or installed, e.g. virtual packages are also listed in the generated list.
 198      </para></listitem>
 199      </varlistentry>
 200
 201      <varlistentry><term><option>dotty</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 202      <listitem><para><literal>dotty</literal> takes a list of packages on the command line and
 203      generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
 204      <ulink url="http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/">GraphViz</ulink>
 205      package. The result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the
 206      relationships between the packages. By default the given packages will
 207      trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very large graph.
 208      To limit the output to only the packages listed on the command line,
 209      set the <literal>APT::Cache::GivenOnly</literal> option.</para>
 210
 211      <para>The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes,
 212      pure virtual packages are triangles, mixed virtual packages are diamonds,
 213      missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped
 214      (leaf packages), blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
 215
 216      <para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
 217      </varlistentry>
 218
 219      <varlistentry><term><option>xvcg</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 220          <listitem><para>The same as <literal>dotty</literal>, only for xvcg from the
 221          <ulink url="http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html">VCG tool</ulink>.
 222          </para></listitem></varlistentry>
 223
 224          <varlistentry><term><option>policy</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</optional></term>
 225      <listitem><para><literal>policy</literal> is meant to help debug issues relating to the
 226      preferences file. With no arguments it will print out the
 227      priorities of each source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information
 228      about the priority selection of the named package.</para></listitem>
 229      </varlistentry>
 230
 231      <varlistentry><term><option>madison</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
 232      <listitem><para><literal>apt-cache</literal>'s <literal>madison</literal> command attempts to mimic
 233      the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian
 234      archive management tool, <literal>madison</literal>.  It displays
 235      available versions of a package in a tabular format.  Unlike the
 236      original <literal>madison</literal>, it can only display information for
 237      the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists
 238      (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>).</para></listitem>
 239      </varlistentry>
 240    </variablelist>
 241  </refsect1>
 242
 243  <refsect1><title>options</title>
 244    &apt-cmdblurb;
 245
 246    <variablelist>
 247      <varlistentry><term><option>-p</option></term><term><option>--pkg-cache</option></term>
 248      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is the
 249      primary cache used by all operations.
 250      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::pkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 251      </varlistentry>
 252
 253      <varlistentry><term><option>-s</option></term><term><option>--src-cache</option></term>
 254      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the source cache. The source is used only by
 255      <literal>gencaches</literal> and it stores a parsed version of the package
 256      information from remote sources. When building the package cache the
 257      source cache is used to avoid reparsing all of the package files.
 258      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 259      </varlistentry>
 260
 261      <varlistentry><term><option>-q</option></term><term><option>--quiet</option></term>
 262      <listitem><para>Quiet; produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress indicators.
 263      More q's will produce more quietness up to a maximum of 2. You can also use
 264      <option>-q=#</option> to set the quietness level, overriding the configuration file.
 265      Configuration Item: <literal>quiet</literal>.</para></listitem>
 266      </varlistentry>
 267
 268      <varlistentry><term><option>-i</option></term><term><option>--important</option></term>
 269      <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with <literal>unmet</literal>
 270      and <literal>depends</literal>. Causes only Depends and
 271      Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
 272      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Important</literal>.</para></listitem>
 273      </varlistentry>
 274
 275      <varlistentry><term><option>--no-pre-depends</option></term>
 276                    <term><option>--no-depends</option></term>
 277                    <term><option>--no-recommends</option></term>
 278                    <term><option>--no-suggests</option></term>
 279                    <term><option>--no-conflicts</option></term>
 280                    <term><option>--no-breaks</option></term>
 281                    <term><option>--no-replaces</option></term>
 282                    <term><option>--no-enhances</option></term>
 283                    <listitem><para>Per default the <command>depends</command> and
 284      <command>rdepends</command> print all dependencies. This can be tweaked with
 285      these flags which will omit the specified dependency type.
 286      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Show<replaceable>DependencyType</replaceable></literal>
 287      e.g. <literal>APT::Cache::ShowRecommends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 288      </varlistentry>
 289
 290      <varlistentry><term><option>--implicit</option></term>
 291         <listitem><para>Per default <command>depends</command> and <command>rdepends</command>
 292               print only dependencies explicitly expressed in the metadata. With this flag
 293               it will also show dependencies implicitely added based on the encountered data.
 294               A <literal>Conflicts: foo</literal> e.g. expresses implicitely that this package
 295               also conflicts with the package foo from any other architecture.
 296               Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowImplicit</literal>.
 297         </para></listitem>
 298      </varlistentry>
 299
 300      <varlistentry><term><option>-f</option></term><term><option>--full</option></term>
 301      <listitem><para>Print full package records when searching.
 302      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowFull</literal>.</para></listitem>
 303      </varlistentry>
 304
 305      <varlistentry><term><option>-a</option></term><term><option>--all-versions</option></term>
 306      <listitem><para>Print full records for all available versions. This is the
 307      default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-all-versions</option>.
 308      If <option>--no-all-versions</option> is specified, only the candidate version
 309      will be displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
 310      This option is only applicable to  the <literal>show</literal> command.
 311      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllVersions</literal>.</para></listitem>
 312      </varlistentry>
 313
 314      <varlistentry><term><option>-g</option></term><term><option>--generate</option></term>
 315      <listitem><para>Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use the cache
 316      as it is. This is the default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-generate</option>.
 317      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Generate</literal>.</para></listitem>
 318      </varlistentry>
 319
 320      <varlistentry><term><option>--names-only</option></term><term><option>-n</option></term>
 321      <listitem><para>Only search on the package and provided package names, not the long descriptions.
 322      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::NamesOnly</literal>.</para></listitem>
 323      </varlistentry>
 324
 325      <varlistentry><term><option>--all-names</option></term>
 326      <listitem><para>Make <literal>pkgnames</literal> print all names, including virtual packages
 327      and missing dependencies.
 328      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllNames</literal>.</para></listitem>
 329      </varlistentry>
 330
 331      <varlistentry><term><option>--recurse</option></term>
 332      <listitem><para>Make <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> recursive so
 333      that all packages mentioned are printed once.
 334      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::RecurseDepends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 335      </varlistentry>
 336
 337       <varlistentry><term><option>--installed</option></term>
 338       <listitem><para>
 339       Limit the output of <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> to
 340       packages which are currently installed.
 341       Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Installed</literal>.</para></listitem>
 342       </varlistentry>
 343
 344      &apt-commonoptions;
 345
 346    </variablelist>
 347  </refsect1>
 348
 349  <refsect1><title>Files</title>
 350    <variablelist>
 351      &file-sourceslist;
 352      &file-statelists;
 353    </variablelist>
 354  </refsect1>
 355
 356  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 357    <para>&apt-conf;, &sources-list;, &apt-get;
 358    </para>
 359  </refsect1>
 360
 361  <refsect1><title>Diagnostics</title>
 362    <para><command>apt-cache</command> returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
 363    </para>
 364  </refsect1>
 365
 366  &manbugs;
 367
 368 </refentry>