PKG_INFO(1) BSD General Commands Manual PKG_INFO(1)NAMEpkg_info — a utility for displaying information on software packages
SYNOPSISpkg_info [-BbcDdFfhIikLmNnpqRrSsVvX] [-E pkg-name] [-e pkg-name]
[-K pkg_dbdir] [-l prefix] pkg-name ...
pkg_info [-a | -u] [flags]
pkg_info [-Q variable] pkg-name ...
DESCRIPTION
The pkg_info command is used to dump out information for packages, which
may be either packed up in files or already installed on the system with
the pkg_create(1) command.
The pkg-name may be the name of an installed package (with our without
version), a pattern matching several installed packages (see the PACKAGE
WILDCARDS section for a description of possible patterns), the pathname
to a binary package, a filename belonging to an installed package (with
-F), or a URL to an FTP-available package.
The following command line options are available:
-a Show information for all currently installed packages. See also
-u. When neither -a nor -u is given, the former is assumed.
-B Show some of the important definitions used when building the
binary package (the “Build information”) for each package. Addi‐
tionally, any installation information variables (lowercase) can
be queried, too. In particular, automatic tells if a package was
installed automatically as a dependency of another package.
-b Show the NetBSD RCS Id strings from the files used in the con‐
struction of the binary package (the “Build version”) for each
package. These files are the package Makefile, any patch files,
any checksum files, and the packing list file.
-c Show the one-line comment field for each package.
-D Show the install-message file (if any) for each package.
-d Show the long-description field for each package.
-E pkg-name
This option allows you to test for the existence of a given pack‐
age. If a package identified by pkg-name is currently installed,
return code is 0, otherwise 1. The name of the best matching
package found installed is printed to stdout unless turned off
using the -q option. pkg-name can contain wildcards (see the
PACKAGE WILDCARDS section below).
-e pkg-name
This option allows you to test for the existence of a given pack‐
age. If a package identified by pkg-name is currently installed,
return code is 0, otherwise 1. The names of any package(s) found
installed are printed to stdout unless turned off using the -q
option. pkg-name can contain wildcards (see the PACKAGE
WILDCARDS section below).
-F Interpret any pkg-name given as filename, and query information
on the package that file belongs to. This can be used to query
information on a per-file basis. See the TECHNICAL DETAILS sec‐
tion below for more information.
-f Show the packing list instructions for each package.
-h Print usage message and exit.
-I Show the index entry for each package. This option is assumed
when no arguments or relevant flags are specified.
-i Show the install script (if any) for each package.
-K pkg_dbdir
Override the value of the PKG_DBDIR configuration option with the
value pkg_dbdir.
-k Show the de-install script (if any) for each package.
-L Show the files within each package. This is different from just
viewing the packing list, since full pathnames for everything are
generated. Files that were created dynamically during installa‐
tion of the package are not listed.
-l prefix
Prefix each information category header (see -q) shown with
prefix. This is primarily of use to front-end programs that want
to request a lot of different information fields at once for a
package, but don't necessary want the output intermingled in such
a way that they can't organize it. This lets you add a special
token to the start of each field.
-m Show the mtree file (if any) for each package.
-N Show which packages each package was built with (exact dependen‐
cies), if any.
-n Show which packages each package needs (depends upon), if any.
-p Show the installation prefix for each package.
-Q variable
Show the definition of variable from the build information for
each package. An empty string is returned if no such variable
definition is found for the package(s).
-q Be “quiet” in emitting report headers and such, just dump the raw
info (basically, assume a non-human reading).
-R For each package, show the packages that require it.
-r For each package, show the packages that require it. Continue
recursively to show all dependents.
-S Show the size of this package and all the packages it requires,
in bytes.
-s Show the size of this package in bytes. The size is calculated
by adding up the size of each file of the package.
-u Show information for all user-installed packages: automatically
installed packages (as dependencies of other packages) are not
displayed. See also -a.
-V Print version number and exit.
-v Turn on verbose output.
-X Print summary information for each package. The summary format
is described in pkg_summary(5). Its primary use is to contain
all information about the contents of a (remote) binary package
repository needed by package managing software.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
Package info is either extracted from package files named on the command
line, or from already installed package information in
<PKG_DBDIR>/<pkg-name>.
When the -F option is used, a filename can be given instead of a package
name to query information on the (installed) package that file belongs
to. The filename is resolved to a package name using the package data‐
base. The filename must be absolute, as in the output of
pkg_info-aF.
For example,
pkg_info-eF /path/to/file
can be used to display the package the given file belongs to, and
pkg_info-LF /path/to/file
can be used to display all files belonging to the package the given file
belongs to.
PACKAGE WILDCARDS
In the places where a package name/version is expected, e.g., for the -e
option, several forms can be used. Either use a package name with or
without version, or specify a package wildcard that gets matched against
all installed packages.
Package wildcards use fnmatch(3). In addition, csh(1) style {,} alter‐
nates have been implemented. Package version numbers can also be matched
in a relational manner using the “≥”, “≤”, “>”, and “<” operators. For
example,
pkg_info-e 'name≥1.3'
will match versions 1.3 and later of the “name” package. (Make sure to
use shell quoting.) Additionally, ranges can be defined, by giving both
a lower bound (with “>” or “≥”) as well as an upper bound (with “<” or
“≤”). The lower bound has to come first. For example,
pkg_info-e 'name≥1.3<2.0'
will match versions 1.3 (inclusive) to 2.0 (exclusive) of package “name”.
The collating sequence of the various package version numbers is unusual,
but strives to be consistent. The magic string “alpha” equates to “alpha
version”, and sorts before a beta version. The magic string “beta”
equates to “beta version”, and sorts before a release candidate. The
magic string “rc” equates to “release candidate”, and sorts before a
release. The magic string “pre”, short for “pre-release”, is a synonym
for “rc”. For example, “name-1.3alpha2” will sort before
“name-1.3beta1”, and they both sort before “name-1.3rc1”. Similarly,
“name-1.3rc3” will sort before “name-1.3”, and after “name-1.2.9”. The
magic string “pl” equates to “patch level”, and has the same value as a
dot (‘.’) in the dewey-decimal ordering schemes, as does the underscore
(‘_’). Additionally, alphabetic characters sort in the same place as
their numeric counterparts, so that “name-1.2e” has the same sorting
value as “name-1.2.5”.
ENVIRONMENT
See pkg_install.conf(5) for options, that can also be specified using the
environment.
SEE ALSOpkg_add(1), pkg_admin(1), pkg_create(1), pkg_delete(1),
pkg_install.conf(5)pkgsrc(7)AUTHORS
Jordan Hubbard
most of the work
John Kohl
refined it for NetBSD
Hubert Feyrer
NetBSD wildcard dependency processing, pkgdb, depends displaying,
pkg size display, and more.
BSD December 14, 2012 BSD
