doc/apt-cache.8.xml

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   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>04 February 2011</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>gencaches</term>
  49      <listitem><para><literal>gencaches</literal> performs the same operation as
  50      <command>apt-get check</command>. It builds the source and package caches from
  51      the sources in &sources-list; and from
  52      <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.</para></listitem>
  53      </varlistentry>
  54
  55      <varlistentry><term>showpkg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
  56      <listitem><para><literal>showpkg</literal> displays information about the packages listed on the
  57      command line. Remaining arguments are package names. The available
  58      versions and reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed, as
  59      well as forward dependencies for each version. Forward (normal)
  60      dependencies are those packages upon which the package in question
  61      depends; reverse dependencies are those packages that depend upon the
  62      package in question. Thus, forward dependencies must be satisfied for a
  63      package, but reverse dependencies need not be.
  64      For instance, <command>apt-cache showpkg libreadline2</command> would produce
  65      output similar to the following:</para>
  66
  67 <informalexample><programlisting>
  68 Package: libreadline2
  69 Versions: 2.1-12(/var/state/apt/lists/foo_Packages),
  70 Reverse Depends:
  71   libreadlineg2,libreadline2
  72   libreadline2-altdev,libreadline2
  73 Dependencies:
  74 2.1-12 - libc5 (2 5.4.0-0) ncurses3.0 (0 (null))
  75 Provides:
  76 2.1-12 -
  77 Reverse Provides:
  78 </programlisting></informalexample>
  79
  80      <para>Thus it may be seen that libreadline2, version 2.1-12, depends on
  81      libc5 and ncurses3.0 which must be installed for libreadline2 to work.
  82      In turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev depend on libreadline2. If
  83      libreadline2 is installed, libc5 and ncurses3.0 (and ldso) must also be
  84      installed; libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev do not have to be
  85      installed. For the specific meaning of the remainder of the output it
  86      is best to consult the apt source code.</para></listitem>
  87      </varlistentry>
  88
  89      <varlistentry><term>stats</term><listitem><para><literal>stats</literal> displays some statistics about the cache.
  90      No further arguments are expected. Statistics reported are:
  91      <itemizedlist>
  92        <listitem><para><literal>Total package names</literal> is the number of package names found
  93        in the cache.</para>
  94        </listitem>
  95
  96        <listitem><para><literal>Normal packages</literal> is the number of regular, ordinary package
  97        names; these are packages that bear a one-to-one correspondence between
  98        their names and the names used by other packages for them in
  99        dependencies. The majority of packages fall into this category.</para>
 100        </listitem>
 101
 102        <listitem><para><literal>Pure virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that exist
 103        only as a virtual package name; that is, packages only "provide" the
 104        virtual package name, and no package actually uses the name. For
 105        instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian GNU/Linux system is a
 106        pure virtual package; several packages provide "mail-transport-agent",
 107        but there is no package named "mail-transport-agent".</para>
 108        </listitem>
 109
 110        <listitem><para><literal>Single virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages with only
 111        one package providing a particular virtual package. For example, in the
 112        Debian GNU/Linux system, "X11-text-viewer" is a virtual package, but
 113        only one package, xless, provides "X11-text-viewer".</para>
 114        </listitem>
 115
 116        <listitem><para><literal>Mixed virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that either
 117        provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual package name
 118        as the package name. For instance, in the Debian GNU/Linux system,
 119        "debconf" is both an actual package, and provided by the debconf-tiny
 120        package.</para>
 121        </listitem>
 122
 123        <listitem><para><literal>Missing</literal> is the number of package names that were referenced in
 124        a dependency but were not provided by any package. Missing packages may
 125        be an evidence if a full distribution is not accessed, or if a package
 126        (real or virtual) has been dropped from the distribution. Usually they
 127        are referenced from Conflicts or Breaks statements.</para>
 128        </listitem>
 129
 130        <listitem><para><literal>Total distinct</literal> versions is the number of package versions
 131        found in the cache; this value is therefore at least equal to the
 132        number of total package names. If more than one distribution (both
 133        "stable" and "unstable", for instance), is being accessed, this value
 134        can be considerably larger than the number of total package names.</para>
 135        </listitem>
 136
 137        <listitem><para><literal>Total dependencies</literal> is the number of dependency relationships
 138        claimed by all of the packages in the cache.</para>
 139        </listitem>
 140      </itemizedlist>
 141      </para></listitem>
 142      </varlistentry>
 143
 144      <varlistentry><term>showsrc <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 145      <listitem><para><literal>showsrc</literal> displays all the source package records that match
 146      the given package names. All versions are shown, as well as all
 147      records that declare the name to be a Binary.</para></listitem>
 148      </varlistentry>
 149
 150      <varlistentry><term>dump</term>
 151      <listitem><para><literal>dump</literal> shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is
 152      primarily for debugging.</para></listitem>
 153      </varlistentry>
 154
 155      <varlistentry><term>dumpavail</term>
 156      <listitem><para><literal>dumpavail</literal> prints out an available list to stdout. This is
 157      suitable for use with &dpkg; and is used by the &dselect; method.</para></listitem>
 158      </varlistentry>
 159
 160      <varlistentry><term>unmet</term>
 161      <listitem><para><literal>unmet</literal> displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the
 162      package cache.</para></listitem>
 163      </varlistentry>
 164
 165      <varlistentry><term>show <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 166      <listitem><para><literal>show</literal> performs a function similar to
 167      <command>dpkg --print-avail</command>; it displays the package records for the
 168      named packages.</para></listitem>
 169      </varlistentry>
 170
 171      <varlistentry><term>search <replaceable>regex [ regex ... ]</replaceable></term>
 172      <listitem><para><literal>search</literal> performs a full text search on all available package
 173      lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see
 174      <citerefentry><refentrytitle><command>regex</command></refentrytitle>
 175      <manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
 176      It searches the package names and the
 177      descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out
 178      the package name and the short description, including virtual package
 179      names.
 180      If <option>--full</option> is given
 181      then output identical to <literal>show</literal> is produced for each matched
 182      package, and if <option>--names-only</option> is given then the long description
 183      is not searched, only the package name is.</para>
 184      <para>
 185      Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that
 186      are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
 187      </varlistentry>
 188
 189      <varlistentry><term>depends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 190      <listitem><para><literal>depends</literal> shows a listing of each dependency a package has
 191      and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.</para></listitem>
 192      </varlistentry>
 193
 194      <varlistentry><term>rdepends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 195      <listitem><para><literal>rdepends</literal> shows a listing of each reverse dependency a
 196       package has.</para></listitem>
 197      </varlistentry>
 198
 199      <varlistentry><term>pkgnames <replaceable>[ prefix ]</replaceable></term>
 200      <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package APT knows. The optional
 201      argument is a prefix match to filter the name list. The output is suitable
 202      for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated
 203      extremely quickly. This command is best used with the
 204      <option>--generate</option> option.</para>
 205      <para>Note that a package which APT knows of is not necessarily available to download,
 206      installable or installed, e.g. virtual packages are also listed in the generated list.
 207      </para></listitem>
 208      </varlistentry>
 209
 210      <varlistentry><term>dotty <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 211      <listitem><para><literal>dotty</literal> takes a list of packages on the command line and
 212      generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
 213      <ulink url="http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/">GraphViz</ulink>
 214      package. The result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the
 215      relationships between the packages. By default the given packages will
 216      trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very large graph.
 217      To limit the output to only the packages listed on the command line,
 218      set the <literal>APT::Cache::GivenOnly</literal> option.</para>
 219
 220      <para>The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes,
 221      pure provides are triangles, mixed provides are diamonds,
 222      missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped
 223      [leaf packages], blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
 224
 225      <para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
 226      </varlistentry>
 227
 228      <varlistentry><term>xvcg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
 229          <listitem><para>The same as <literal>dotty</literal>, only for xvcg from the
 230          <ulink url="http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html">VCG tool</ulink>.
 231          </para></listitem></varlistentry>
 232
 233      <varlistentry><term>policy <replaceable>[ pkg(s) ]</replaceable></term>
 234      <listitem><para><literal>policy</literal> is meant to help debug issues relating to the
 235      preferences file. With no arguments it will print out the
 236      priorities of each source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information
 237      about the priority selection of the named package.</para></listitem>
 238      </varlistentry>
 239
 240      <varlistentry><term>madison <replaceable>[ pkg(s) ]</replaceable></term>
 241      <listitem><para><literal>apt-cache</literal>'s <literal>madison</literal> command attempts to mimic
 242      the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian
 243      archive management tool, <literal>madison</literal>.  It displays
 244      available versions of a package in a tabular format.  Unlike the
 245      original <literal>madison</literal>, it can only display information for
 246      the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists
 247      (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>).</para></listitem>
 248      </varlistentry>
 249    </variablelist>
 250  </refsect1>
 251
 252  <refsect1><title>options</title>
 253    &apt-cmdblurb;
 254
 255    <variablelist>
 256      <varlistentry><term><option>-p</option></term><term><option>--pkg-cache</option></term>
 257      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is the
 258      primary cache used by all operations.
 259      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::pkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 260      </varlistentry>
 261
 262      <varlistentry><term><option>-s</option></term><term><option>--src-cache</option></term>
 263      <listitem><para>Select the file to store the source cache. The source is used only by
 264      <literal>gencaches</literal> and it stores a parsed version of the package
 265      information from remote sources. When building the package cache the
 266      source cache is used to avoid reparsing all of the package files.
 267      Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache</literal>.</para></listitem>
 268      </varlistentry>
 269
 270      <varlistentry><term><option>-q</option></term><term><option>--quiet</option></term>
 271      <listitem><para>Quiet; produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress indicators.
 272      More q's will produce more quietness up to a maximum of 2. You can also use
 273      <option>-q=#</option> to set the quietness level, overriding the configuration file.
 274      Configuration Item: <literal>quiet</literal>.</para></listitem>
 275      </varlistentry>
 276
 277      <varlistentry><term><option>-i</option></term><term><option>--important</option></term>
 278      <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with unmet and depends. Causes only Depends and
 279      Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
 280      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Important</literal>.</para></listitem>
 281      </varlistentry>
 282
 283      <varlistentry><term><option>--no-pre-depends</option></term>
 284                    <term><option>--no-depends</option></term>
 285                    <term><option>--no-recommends</option></term>
 286                    <term><option>--no-suggests</option></term>
 287                    <term><option>--no-conflicts</option></term>
 288                    <term><option>--no-breaks</option></term>
 289                    <term><option>--no-replaces</option></term>
 290                    <term><option>--no-enhances</option></term>
 291                    <listitem><para>Per default the <literal>depends</literal> and
 292      <literal>rdepends</literal> print all dependencies. This can be tweaked with
 293      these flags which will omit the specified dependency type.
 294      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Show<replaceable>DependencyType</replaceable></literal>
 295      e.g. <literal>APT::Cache::ShowRecommends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 296      </varlistentry>
 297      <varlistentry><term><option>-f</option></term><term><option>--full</option></term>
 298      <listitem><para>Print full package records when searching.
 299      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowFull</literal>.</para></listitem>
 300      </varlistentry>
 301
 302      <varlistentry><term><option>-a</option></term><term><option>--all-versions</option></term>
 303      <listitem><para>Print full records for all available versions. This is the
 304      default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-all-versions</option>.
 305      If <option>--no-all-versions</option> is specified, only the candidate version
 306      will displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
 307      This option is only applicable to  the <literal>show</literal> command.
 308      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllVersions</literal>.</para></listitem>
 309      </varlistentry>
 310
 311      <varlistentry><term><option>-g</option></term><term><option>--generate</option></term>
 312      <listitem><para>Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use the cache
 313      as it is. This is the default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-generate</option>.
 314      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Generate</literal>.</para></listitem>
 315      </varlistentry>
 316
 317      <varlistentry><term><option>--names-only</option></term><term><option>-n</option></term>
 318      <listitem><para>Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions.
 319      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::NamesOnly</literal>.</para></listitem>
 320      </varlistentry>
 321
 322      <varlistentry><term><option>--all-names</option></term>
 323      <listitem><para>Make <literal>pkgnames</literal> print all names, including virtual packages
 324      and missing dependencies.
 325      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllNames</literal>.</para></listitem>
 326      </varlistentry>
 327
 328      <varlistentry><term><option>--recurse</option></term>
 329      <listitem><para>Make <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> recursive so
 330      that all packages mentioned are printed once.
 331      Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::RecurseDepends</literal>.</para></listitem>
 332      </varlistentry>
 333
 334       <varlistentry><term><option>--installed</option></term>
 335       <listitem><para>
 336       Limit the output of <literal>depends</literal> and <literal>rdepends</literal> to
 337       packages which are currently installed.
 338       Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Installed</literal>.</para></listitem>
 339       </varlistentry>
 340
 341      &apt-commonoptions;
 342
 343    </variablelist>
 344  </refsect1>
 345
 346  <refsect1><title>Files</title>
 347    <variablelist>
 348      &file-sourceslist;
 349      &file-statelists;
 350    </variablelist>
 351  </refsect1>
 352
 353  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 354    <para>&apt-conf;, &sources-list;, &apt-get;
 355    </para>
 356  </refsect1>
 357
 358  <refsect1><title>Diagnostics</title>
 359    <para><command>apt-cache</command> returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
 360    </para>
 361  </refsect1>
 362
 363  &manbugs;
 364
 365 </refentry>