<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
-<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
- "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
-
-<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
-%aptent;
-
+<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
+ "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
+<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent"> %aptent;
+<!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent"> %aptverbatiment;
+<!ENTITY % aptvendor SYSTEM "apt-vendor.ent"> %aptvendor;
]>
<refentry>
&apt-email;
&apt-product;
<!-- The last update date -->
- <date>29 February 2004</date>
+ <date>2015-10-27T00:00:00Z</date>
</refentryinfo>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>apt-cache</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum>
+ <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<!-- Man page title -->
<refnamediv>
<refname>apt-cache</refname>
- <refpurpose>APT package handling utility -- cache manipulator</refpurpose>
+ <refpurpose>query the APT cache</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
- <!-- Arguments -->
- <refsynopsisdiv>
- <cmdsynopsis>
- <command>apt-cache</command>
- <arg><option>-hvsn</option></arg>
- <arg><option>-o=<replaceable>config string</replaceable></option></arg>
- <arg><option>-c=<replaceable>file</replaceable></option></arg>
- <group choice="req">
- <arg>add <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>file</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>gencaches</arg>
- <arg>showpkg <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>showsrc <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>stats</arg>
- <arg>dump</arg>
- <arg>dumpavail</arg>
- <arg>unmet</arg>
- <arg>search <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>regex</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>show <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>depends <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>rdepends <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>pkgnames <arg choice="plain"><replaceable>prefix</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>dotty <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>xvcg <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkg</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>policy <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkgs</replaceable></arg></arg>
- <arg>madison <arg choice="plain" rep="repeat"><replaceable>pkgs</replaceable></arg></arg>
- </group>
- </cmdsynopsis>
- </refsynopsisdiv>
-
+ &synopsis-command-apt-cache;
+
<refsect1><title>Description</title>
- <para><command>apt-cache</command> performs a variety of operations on APT's package
- cache. <command>apt-cache</command> does not manipulate the state of the system
- but does provide operations to search and generate interesting output
- from the package metadata.</para>
+ <para>
+ <command>apt-cache</command> performs a variety of operations on APT's
+ package cache. <command>apt-cache</command> does not manipulate the
+ state of the system but does provide operations to search and generate
+ interesting output from the package metadata. The metadata is acquired
+ and updated via the 'update' command of e.g. <command>apt-get</command>,
+ so that it can be outdated if the last update is too long ago, but in
+ exchange <command>apt-cache</command> works independently of the
+ availability of the configured sources (e.g. offline).
+ </para>
<para>Unless the <option>-h</option>, or <option>--help</option> option is given, one of the
commands below must be present.</para>
<variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term>add <replaceable>file(s)</replaceable></term>
- <listitem><para><literal>add</literal> adds the named package index files to the package cache.
- This is for debugging only.</para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>gencaches</term>
- <listitem><para><literal>gencaches</literal> performs the same operation as
- <command>apt-get check</command>. It builds the source and package caches from
- the sources in &sources-list; and from
- <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.</para></listitem>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>gencaches</option></term>
+ <listitem><para><literal>gencaches</literal> creates APT's package cache. This is done
+ implicitly by all commands needing this cache if it is missing or outdated.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>showpkg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>showpkg</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>showpkg</literal> displays information about the packages listed on the
command line. Remaining arguments are package names. The available
versions and reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed, as
is best to consult the apt source code.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>
stats</term><listitem><para><literal>stats</literal> displays some statistics about the cache.
+ <varlistentry><term>
<option>stats</option></term><listitem><para><literal>stats</literal> displays some statistics about the cache.
No further arguments are expected. Statistics reported are:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><literal>Total package names</literal> is the number of package names found
<listitem><para><literal>Pure virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that exist
only as a virtual package name; that is, packages only "provide" the
virtual package name, and no package actually uses the name. For
- instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian GNU/Linux system is a
+ instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian system is a
pure virtual package; several packages provide "mail-transport-agent",
but there is no package named "mail-transport-agent".</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><literal>Single virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages with only
one package providing a particular virtual package. For example, in the
- Debian GNU/Linux system, "X11-text-viewer" is a virtual package, but
+ Debian system, "X11-text-viewer" is a virtual package, but
only one package, xless, provides "X11-text-viewer".</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><literal>Mixed virtual packages</literal> is the number of packages that either
provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual package name
- as the package name. For instance, in the Debian GNU/Linux system,
+ as the package name. For instance, in the Debian system,
"debconf" is both an actual package, and provided by the debconf-tiny
package.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><literal>Missing</literal> is the number of package names that were referenced in
a dependency but were not provided by any package. Missing packages may
- be in evidence if a full distribution is not accessed, or if a package
+ be an evidence if a full distribution is not accessed, or if a package
(real or virtual) has been dropped from the distribution. Usually they
are referenced from Conflicts or Breaks statements.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><literal>Total distinct</literal> versions is the number of package versions
- found in the cache; this value is therefore at least equal to the
- number of total package names. If more than one distribution (both
- "stable" and "unstable", for instance), is being accessed, this value
+ found in the cache. If more than one distribution is being accessed
+ (for instance, "stable" and "unstable"), this value
can be considerably larger than the number of total package names.</para>
</listitem>
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>showsrc <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
- <listitem><para><literal>showsrc</literal> displays all the source package records that match
- the given package names. All versions are shown, as well as all
- records that declare the name to be a Binary.</para></listitem>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>showsrc</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
+ <listitem><para><literal>showsrc</literal> displays all the
+ source package records that match the given package names. All
+ versions are shown, as well as all records that declare the name
+ to be a binary package. Use <option>--only-source</option> to
+ display only source package names.
+ </para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>dump</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>dump</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>dump</literal> shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is
primarily for debugging.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>dumpavail</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>dumpavail</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>dumpavail</literal> prints out an available list to stdout. This is
suitable for use with &dpkg; and is used by the &dselect; method.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>unmet</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>unmet</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>unmet</literal> displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the
package cache.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>show <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>show</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>show</literal> performs a function similar to
<command>dpkg --print-avail</command>; it displays the package records for the
named packages.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>search <replaceable>regex [ regex ... ]</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>search</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-regex;</replaceable>…</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>search</literal> performs a full text search on all available package
- lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see
- <citerefentry><refentrytitle><command>regex</command></refentrytitle>
- <manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
+ lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see ®ex;.
It searches the package names and the
descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out
the package name and the short description, including virtual package
If <option>--full</option> is given
then output identical to <literal>show</literal> is produced for each matched
package, and if <option>--names-only</option> is given then the long description
- is not searched, only the package name is.</para>
+ is not searched, only the package name and provided packages are.</para>
<para>
Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that
are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>depends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>depends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>depends</literal> shows a listing of each dependency a package has
and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>rdepends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>rdepends</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>rdepends</literal> shows a listing of each reverse dependency a
package has.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>pkgnames <replaceable>[ prefix ]</replaceable></term>
- <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package in the system. The optional
+ <varlistentry><term><option>pkgnames</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-prefix;</replaceable></optional></term>
+ <listitem><para>This command prints the name of each package APT knows. The optional
argument is a prefix match to filter the name list. The output is suitable
for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated
extremely quickly. This command is best used with the
- <option>--generate</option> option.</para></listitem>
+ <option>--generate</option> option.</para>
+ <para>Note that a package which APT knows of is not necessarily available to download,
+ installable or installed, e.g. virtual packages are also listed in the generated list.
+ </para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>dotty <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>dotty</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>dotty</literal> takes a list of packages on the command line and
generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
<ulink url="http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/">GraphViz</ulink>
set the <literal>APT::Cache::GivenOnly</literal> option.</para>
<para>The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes,
- pure provides are triangles, mixed provides are diamonds,
+ pure virtual packages are triangles, mixed virtual packages are diamonds,
missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped
- [leaf packages], blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
+ (leaf packages), blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts.</para>
<para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>xvcg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>xvcg</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
<listitem><para>The same as <literal>dotty</literal>, only for xvcg from the
<ulink url="http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html">VCG tool</ulink>.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>policy <replaceable>[ pkg(s) ]</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>policy</option> <optional><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</optional></term>
<listitem><para><literal>policy</literal> is meant to help debug issues relating to the
preferences file. With no arguments it will print out the
priorities of each source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information
about the priority selection of the named package.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>madison <replaceable>/[ pkg(s) ]</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>madison</option> <option><replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</option></term>
<listitem><para><literal>apt-cache</literal>'s <literal>madison</literal> command attempts to mimic
the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian
archive management tool, <literal>madison</literal>. It displays
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><option>-i</option></term><term><option>--important</option></term>
- <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with unmet and depends. Causes only Depends and
+ <listitem><para>Print only important dependencies; for use with <literal>unmet</literal>
+ and <literal>depends</literal>. Causes only Depends and
Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Important</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>--no-pre-depends</option></term>
+ <term><option>--no-depends</option></term>
+ <term><option>--no-recommends</option></term>
+ <term><option>--no-suggests</option></term>
+ <term><option>--no-conflicts</option></term>
+ <term><option>--no-breaks</option></term>
+ <term><option>--no-replaces</option></term>
+ <term><option>--no-enhances</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Per default the <command>depends</command> and
+ <command>rdepends</command> print all dependencies. This can be tweaked with
+ these flags which will omit the specified dependency type.
+ Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::Show<replaceable>DependencyType</replaceable></literal>
+ e.g. <literal>APT::Cache::ShowRecommends</literal>.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>--implicit</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Per default <command>depends</command> and <command>rdepends</command>
+ print only dependencies explicitly expressed in the metadata. With this flag
+ it will also show dependencies implicitely added based on the encountered data.
+ A <literal>Conflicts: foo</literal> e.g. expresses implicitely that this package
+ also conflicts with the package foo from any other architecture.
+ Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowImplicit</literal>.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
<varlistentry><term><option>-f</option></term><term><option>--full</option></term>
<listitem><para>Print full package records when searching.
Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::ShowFull</literal>.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Print full records for all available versions. This is the
default; to turn it off, use <option>--no-all-versions</option>.
If <option>--no-all-versions</option> is specified, only the candidate version
- will displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
+ will be displayed (the one which would be selected for installation).
This option is only applicable to the <literal>show</literal> command.
Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::AllVersions</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><option>--names-only</option></term><term><option>-n</option></term>
- <listitem><para>Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions.
+ <listitem><para>Only search on the package and provided package names, not the long descriptions.
Configuration Item: <literal>APT::Cache::NamesOnly</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<refsect1><title>Files</title>
<variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term><filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename></term>
- <listitem><para>Locations to fetch packages from.
- Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::Etc::SourceList</literal>.</para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term><filename>&statedir;/lists/</filename></term>
- <listitem><para>Storage area for state information for each package resource specified in
- &sources-list;
- Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::State::Lists</literal>.</para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term><filename>&statedir;/lists/partial/</filename></term>
- <listitem><para>Storage area for state information in transit.
- Configuration Item: <literal>Dir::State::Lists</literal> (implicit partial).</para></listitem>
- </varlistentry>
+ &file-sourceslist;
+ &file-statelists;
</variablelist>
</refsect1>
projects / apt.git / blobdiff