<variablelist>
<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>
+ <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+ implicitly by all commands needing this cache if it is missing or outdated.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>showpkg <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</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
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>showsrc <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term>showsrc <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</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>
package cache.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>show <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term>show <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</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>search <replaceable>&synopsis-regex;</replaceable>…</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>
are and'ed together.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>depends <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term>depends <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</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>rdepends <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</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>
+ <varlistentry><term>pkgnames [ <replaceable>&synopsis-prefix;</replaceable> ]</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
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>dotty <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term>dotty <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</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>
<para>Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>xvcg <replaceable>pkg(s)</replaceable></term>
+ <varlistentry><term>xvcg <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable></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>policy [ <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>… ]</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>madison <replaceable>&synopsis-pkg;</replaceable>…</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