doc/apt-cache.8.xml

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