APT-CACHE(8)apt-cacheAPT-CACHE(8)NAMEapt-cache - APT package handling utility -- cache manipulator
SYNOPSISapt-cache [options] [-o config=string] [-c=cfgfile] command [pkg|file(s)|regex]
DESCRIPTIONapt-cache performs a variety of operations on APT's package cache.
apt-cache does not manipulate the state of the system but does provide
operations to search and generate interesting output from the package
metadata.
COMMANDS
Unless the -h, or --help option is given, one of the commands below
must be present.
add file(s)
Adds the named package index file(s) to the package cache. This
is for debugging only.
gencaches
Performs the same operation as apt-get check. It builds the
source and package caches from the sources in sources.list(5)
and from /var/lib/rpm/.
showpkg pkg(s)
Displays information about the packages listed on the command-
line. Remaining arguments are package names. The available ver‐
sions and reverse dependencies of each package specified are
listed, as well as forward dependencies for each version. For‐
ward (normal) dependencies are those packages upon which the
package in question depends; reverse dependencies are those
packages that depend upon the package in question. Thus, forward
dependencies must be satisfied for a package, but reverse depen‐
dencies need not be. For instance, apt-cache showpkg libread‐
line2 would produce output similar to the following:
Package: libreadline2
Versions: 2.1-12(/var/lib/apt/lists/foo_Packages),
Reverse Depends:
libreadlineg2,libreadline2
libreadline2-altdev,libreadline2
Dependencies:
2.1-12 - libc5 (2 5.4.0-0) ncurses3.0 (0 (null))
Provides:
2.1-12 -
Reverse Provides:
Thus it may be seen that libreadline2, version 2.1-12, depends
on libc5 and ncurses3.0 which must be installed for libreadline2
to work. In turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev depend
on libreadline2. If libreadline2 is installed, libc5 and
ncurses3.0 (and ldso) must also be installed; libreadlineg2 and
libreadline2-altdev do not have to be installed. For the spe‐
cific meaning of the remainder of the output it is best to con‐
sult the apt source code.
stats Displays some statistics about the cache. No further arguments
are expected. Statistics reported are:
· Total package names is the number of package names found in
the cache.
· Normal packages is the number of regular, ordinary package
names; these are packages that bear a one-to-one correspon‐
dence between their names and the names used by other packages
for them in dependencies. The majority of packages fall into
this category.
· Pure virtual packages is the number of packages that exist
only as a virtual package name; that is, packages only "pro‐
vide" the virtual package name, and no package actually uses
the name. For instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian
GNU/Linux system is a pure virtual package; several packages
provide "mail-transport-agent", but there is no package named
"mail-transport-agent".
· Single virtual packages is the number of packages with only
one package providing a particular virtual package. For exam‐
ple, in the Debian GNU/Linux system, "X11-text-viewer" is a
virtual package, but only one package, xless, provides
"X11-text-viewer".
· Mixed virtual packages is the number of packages that either
provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual pack‐
age name as the package name. For instance, in the Debian
GNU/Linux system, "debconf" is both an actual package, and
provided by the debconf-tiny package.
· Missing 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 (real or virtual) has been dropped
from the distribution. Usually they are referenced from Con‐
flicts statements.
· Total distinct 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 distribu‐
tion (both "stable" and "unstable", for instance), is being
accessed, this value can be considerably larger than the num‐
ber of total package names.
· Total dependencies is the number of dependency relationships
claimed by all of the packages in the cache.
showsrc pkg(s)
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.
dump Shows a short listing of every package in the cache. It is pri‐
marily for debugging.
dumpavail
Prints out an available list to stdout.
unmet Displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the package
cache.
show pkg(s)
Displays the package records for the named packages.
search regex [regex ...]
Performs a full text search on all available package lists for
the regex pattern given. 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. If --full
is given then output identical to show is produced for each
matched package, and if --names-only is given then the long
description is not searched, only the package name is.
Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search pat‐
terns that are and'ed together.
depends pkg(s)
Shows a listing of each dependency a package has and all the
possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.
whatdepends pkg(s)
Shows a listing of what depends on a package.
whatprovides pkg(s)
Shows a listing of package which provides a dependency.
pkgnames prefix
Prints the name of each package in the system. 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 --generate option.
dotty pkg(s)
Takes a list of packages on the command line and generates out‐
put suitable for use by dotty from the GraphViz
(http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/) package. The
result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the rela‐
tionships between the packages. By default the given packages
will trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very
large graph. To limit the output to only the packages listed on
the command line, set the APT::Cache::GivenOnly option.
The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages
are boxes, pure provides are triangles, mixed provides are dia‐
monds, missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes mean recur‐
sion was stopped [leaf packages], blue lines are pre-depends,
green lines are conflicts.
Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.
policy [pkg(s)]
This 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.
OPTIONS
All command-line options may be set using the configuration file, the
descriptions indicate the configuration option to set. For boolean
options you can override the config file by using something like
-f-,--no-f, -f=no or several other variations.
-p, --pkg-cache
Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is
the primary cache used by all operations.
Configuration Item: Dir::Cache::pkgcache.
-s, --src-cache
Select the file to store the source cache. The source is used
only by gencaches and it stores a parsed version of the package
information from remote sources. When building the package cache
the source cache is used to advoid reparsing all of the package
files.
Configuration Item: Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache.
-q, --quiet
Quiet. Produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress
indicators. More q's will produce more quietness up to a maxi‐
mum of two. You can also use -q=# to set the quietness level,
overriding the configuration file.
Configuration Item: quiet.
-i, --important
Print only important dependencies; for use with unmet. Causes
only Depends and Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
Configuration Item: APT::Cache::Important.
-f, --full
Print full package records when searching.
Configuration Item: APT::Cache::ShowFull.
-a, --all-versions
Print full records for all available versions. This is the
default; to turn it off, use --no-all-versions. If --no-all-ver‐
sions is specified, only the candidate version will be displayed
(the one which would be selected for installation). This option
is only applicable to the show command.
Configuration Item: APT::Cache::AllVersions.
-g, --generate
Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use
the cache as it is. This is the default; to turn it off, use
--no-generate.
Configuration Item: APT::Cache::Generate.
-n, --names-only
Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions.
Configuration Item: APT::Cache::NamesOnly.
--all-names
Make pkgnames print all names, including virtual packages and
missing dependencies.
Configuration Item: APT::Cache::AllNames.
--recurse
Make depends recursive so that all packages mentioned are
printed once.
Configuration Item: APT::Cache::RecurseDepends.
-h, --help
Show a short usage summary.
-v, --version
Show the program version.
-c, --config-file
Configuration File. Specify a configuration file to use. The
program will read the default configuration file and then this
configuration file. See apt.conf(5) for syntax information.
-o, --option
Set a Configuration Option. This will set an arbitrary configu‐
ration option. The syntax is -o Foo::Bar=bar.
FILES
/etc/apt/sources.list
Locations to fetch packages from.
Configuration Item: Dir::Etc::SourceList.
/var/lib/apt/lists/
Storage area for state information for each package resource
specified in sources.list(5).
Configuration Item: Dir::State::Lists.
/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/
Storage area for state information in transit.
Configuration Item: Dir::State::Lists (implicit partial).
SEE ALSOapt.conf(5), sources.list(5), apt-get(8)DIAGNOSTICSapt-cache returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
BUGS
Reporting bugs in APT-RPM is best done in the APT-RPM mailinglist at
http://apt-rpm.org/mailinglist.shtml.
AUTHOR
Maintainer and contributor information can be found in the credits page
http://apt-rpm.org/about.shtml of APT-RPM.
APT-RPM 14 Jun 2006 APT-CACHE(8)
