1APT-CACHE(8)                       apt-cache                      APT-CACHE(8)
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NAME

6       apt-cache - APT package handling utility -- cache manipulator
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SYNOPSIS

10       apt-cache [options] [-o config=string] [-c=cfgfile] command [pkg|file(s)|regex]
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DESCRIPTION

14       apt-cache  performs  a  variety  of  operations on APT's package cache.
15       apt-cache does not manipulate the state of the system but does  provide
16       operations  to  search and generate interesting output from the package
17       metadata.
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COMMANDS

21       Unless the -h, or --help option is given, one  of  the  commands  below
22       must be present.
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25       add file(s)
26              Adds  the named package index file(s) to the package cache. This
27              is for debugging only.
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30       gencaches
31              Performs the same operation as  apt-get  check.  It  builds  the
32              source  and  package  caches from the sources in sources.list(5)
33              and from /var/lib/rpm/.
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36       showpkg pkg(s)
37              Displays information about the packages listed on  the  command-
38              line.  Remaining arguments are package names. The available ver‐
39              sions and reverse dependencies of  each  package  specified  are
40              listed,  as  well as forward dependencies for each version. For‐
41              ward (normal) dependencies are those  packages  upon  which  the
42              package  in  question  depends;  reverse  dependencies are those
43              packages that depend upon the package in question. Thus, forward
44              dependencies must be satisfied for a package, but reverse depen‐
45              dencies need not be. For instance,  apt-cache  showpkg  libread‐
46              line2 would produce output similar to the following:
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48              Package: libreadline2
49              Versions: 2.1-12(/var/lib/apt/lists/foo_Packages),
50              Reverse Depends:
51                libreadlineg2,libreadline2
52                libreadline2-altdev,libreadline2
53              Dependencies:
54              2.1-12 - libc5 (2 5.4.0-0) ncurses3.0 (0 (null))
55              Provides:
56              2.1-12 -
57              Reverse Provides:
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59              Thus  it  may be seen that libreadline2, version 2.1-12, depends
60              on libc5 and ncurses3.0 which must be installed for libreadline2
61              to  work.  In turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2-altdev depend
62              on  libreadline2.  If  libreadline2  is  installed,  libc5   and
63              ncurses3.0  (and ldso) must also be installed; libreadlineg2 and
64              libreadline2-altdev do not have to be installed.  For  the  spe‐
65              cific  meaning of the remainder of the output it is best to con‐
66              sult the apt source code.
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69       stats  Displays some statistics about the cache. No  further  arguments
70              are expected.  Statistics reported are:
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72              · Total  package  names  is the number of package names found in
73                the cache.
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75              · Normal packages is the number  of  regular,  ordinary  package
76                names;  these  are  packages that bear a one-to-one correspon‐
77                dence between their names and the names used by other packages
78                for  them  in dependencies. The majority of packages fall into
79                this category.
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81              · Pure virtual packages is the number  of  packages  that  exist
82                only  as  a virtual package name; that is, packages only "pro‐
83                vide" the virtual package name, and no package  actually  uses
84                the  name.  For instance, "mail-transport-agent" in the Debian
85                GNU/Linux system is a pure virtual package;  several  packages
86                provide  "mail-transport-agent", but there is no package named
87                "mail-transport-agent".
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89              · Single virtual packages is the number of  packages  with  only
90                one  package providing a particular virtual package. For exam‐
91                ple, in the Debian GNU/Linux system,  "X11-text-viewer"  is  a
92                virtual   package,  but  only  one  package,  xless,  provides
93                "X11-text-viewer".
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95              · Mixed virtual packages is the number of packages  that  either
96                provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual pack‐
97                age name as the package name.  For  instance,  in  the  Debian
98                GNU/Linux  system,  "debconf"  is  both an actual package, and
99                provided by the debconf-tiny package.
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101              · Missing is the number of package names that were referenced in
102                a  dependency  but  were  not provided by any package. Missing
103                packages may be in evidence if  a  full  distribution  is  not
104                accessed,  or  if a package (real or virtual) has been dropped
105                from the distribution. Usually they are referenced  from  Con‐
106                flicts statements.
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108              · Total  distinct  versions  is  the  number of package versions
109                found in the cache; this value is therefore at least equal  to
110                the  number of total package names. If more than one distribu‐
111                tion (both "stable" and "unstable", for  instance),  is  being
112                accessed,  this value can be considerably larger than the num‐
113                ber of total package names.
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115              · Total dependencies is the number of  dependency  relationships
116                claimed by all of the packages in the cache.
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119       showsrc pkg(s)
120              Displays  all  the  source  package records that match the given
121              package names.  All versions are shown, as well as  all  records
122              that declare the name to be a Binary.
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125       dump   Shows  a short listing of every package in the cache. It is pri‐
126              marily for debugging.
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129       dumpavail
130              Prints out an available list to stdout.
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133       unmet  Displays a summary of all  unmet  dependencies  in  the  package
134              cache.
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137       show pkg(s)
138              Displays the package records for the named packages.
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141       search regex [regex ...]
142              Performs  a  full text search on all available package lists for
143              the regex pattern given. It searches the package names  and  the
144              descriptions  for  an  occurrence  of the regular expression and
145              prints out the package name and the short description. If --full
146              is  given  then  output  identical  to show is produced for each
147              matched package, and if --names-only  is  given  then  the  long
148              description is not searched, only the package name is.
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150              Separate  arguments  can be used to specify multiple search pat‐
151              terns that are and'ed together.
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154       depends pkg(s)
155              Shows a listing of each dependency a package  has  and  all  the
156              possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.
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159       whatdepends pkg(s)
160              Shows a listing of what depends on a package.
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163       whatprovides pkg(s)
164              Shows a listing of package which provides a dependency.
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167       pkgnames prefix
168              Prints  the  name  of  each  package in the system. The optional
169              argument is a prefix match to filter the name list.  The  output
170              is  suitable  for  use  in a shell tab complete function and the
171              output is generated extremely quickly.   This  command  is  best
172              used with the --generate option.
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175       dotty pkg(s)
176              Takes  a list of packages on the command line and generates out‐
177              put   suitable   for   use   by   dotty   from   the    GraphViz
178              (http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/)   package.  The
179              result will be a set of nodes and edges representing  the  rela‐
180              tionships  between  the  packages. By default the given packages
181              will trace out all dependent packages; this can produce  a  very
182              large  graph. To limit the output to only the packages listed on
183              the command line, set the APT::Cache::GivenOnly option.
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185              The resulting nodes will have several  shapes;  normal  packages
186              are  boxes, pure provides are triangles, mixed provides are dia‐
187              monds, missing packages are hexagons. Orange boxes  mean  recur‐
188              sion  was  stopped  [leaf packages], blue lines are pre-depends,
189              green lines are conflicts.
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191              Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.
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194       policy [pkg(s)]
195              This is meant to help debug issues relating to  the  preferences
196              file. With no arguments it will print out the priorities of each
197              source. Otherwise it prints out detailed information  about  the
198              priority selection of the named package.
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OPTIONS

202       All  command-line  options may be set using the configuration file, the
203       descriptions indicate the configuration  option  to  set.  For  boolean
204       options  you  can  override  the  config  file  by using something like
205       -f-,--no-f, -f=no or several other variations.
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208       -p, --pkg-cache
209              Select the file to store the package cache. The package cache is
210              the primary cache used by all operations.
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212              Configuration Item: Dir::Cache::pkgcache.
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215       -s, --src-cache
216              Select  the  file  to store the source cache. The source is used
217              only by gencaches and it stores a parsed version of the  package
218              information from remote sources. When building the package cache
219              the source cache is used to advoid reparsing all of the  package
220              files.
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222              Configuration Item: Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache.
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225       -q, --quiet
226              Quiet.   Produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress
227              indicators.  More q's will produce more quietness up to a  maxi‐
228              mum  of  two.  You can also use -q=# to set the quietness level,
229              overriding the configuration file.
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231              Configuration Item: quiet.
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234       -i, --important
235              Print only important dependencies; for use  with  unmet.  Causes
236              only Depends and Pre-Depends relations to be printed.
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238              Configuration Item: APT::Cache::Important.
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241       -f, --full
242              Print full package records when searching.
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244              Configuration Item: APT::Cache::ShowFull.
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247       -a, --all-versions
248              Print  full  records  for  all  available  versions. This is the
249              default; to turn it off, use --no-all-versions. If --no-all-ver‐
250              sions is specified, only the candidate version will be displayed
251              (the one which would be selected for installation). This  option
252              is only applicable to the show command.
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254              Configuration Item: APT::Cache::AllVersions.
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257       -g, --generate
258              Perform  automatic  package  cache regeneration, rather than use
259              the cache as it is. This is the default; to  turn  it  off,  use
260              --no-generate.
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262              Configuration Item: APT::Cache::Generate.
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265       -n, --names-only
266              Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions.
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268              Configuration Item: APT::Cache::NamesOnly.
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271       --all-names
272              Make  pkgnames  print  all names, including virtual packages and
273              missing dependencies.
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275              Configuration Item: APT::Cache::AllNames.
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278       --recurse
279              Make depends  recursive  so  that  all  packages  mentioned  are
280              printed once.
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282              Configuration Item: APT::Cache::RecurseDepends.
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285       -h, --help
286              Show a short usage summary.
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289       -v, --version
290              Show the program version.
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293       -c, --config-file
294              Configuration  File.  Specify  a  configuration file to use. The
295              program will read the default configuration file and  then  this
296              configuration file. See apt.conf(5) for syntax information.
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299       -o, --option
300              Set  a Configuration Option. This will set an arbitrary configu‐
301              ration option.  The syntax is -o Foo::Bar=bar.
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FILES

305       /etc/apt/sources.list
306              Locations to fetch packages from.
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308              Configuration Item: Dir::Etc::SourceList.
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311       /var/lib/apt/lists/
312              Storage area for state information  for  each  package  resource
313              specified in sources.list(5).
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315              Configuration Item: Dir::State::Lists.
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318       /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/
319              Storage area for state information in transit.
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321              Configuration Item: Dir::State::Lists (implicit partial).
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SEE ALSO

325       apt.conf(5), sources.list(5), apt-get(8)
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DIAGNOSTICS

329       apt-cache returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.
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BUGS

333       Reporting  bugs  in  APT-RPM is best done in the APT-RPM mailinglist at
334       http://apt-rpm.org/mailinglist.shtml.
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AUTHOR

338       Maintainer and contributor information can be found in the credits page
339       http://apt-rpm.org/about.shtml of APT-RPM.
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343APT-RPM                           14 Jun 2006                     APT-CACHE(8)
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