1dpkg-query(1) dpkg suite dpkg-query(1)
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6 dpkg-query - a tool to query the dpkg database
7
9 dpkg-query [option...] command
10
12 dpkg-query is a tool to show information about packages listed in the
13 dpkg database.
14
16 -l, --list [package-name-pattern...]
17 List all known packages matching one or more patterns, regardless
18 of their status, which includes any real or virtual package
19 referenced in any dependency relationship field (such as Breaks,
20 Enhances, etc.). If no package-name-pattern is given, list all
21 packages in /var/lib/dpkg/status, excluding the ones marked as not-
22 installed (i.e. those which have been previously purged). Normal
23 shell wildcard characters are allowed in package-name-pattern.
24 Please note you will probably have to quote package-name-pattern to
25 prevent the shell from performing filename expansion. For example
26 this will list all package names starting with “libc6”:
27 dpkg-query -l 'libc6*'
29 The first three columns of the output show the desired action, the
31 package status, and errors, in that order.
32 Desired action:
34 u = Unknown
36 i = Install
37 h = Hold
38 r = Remove
39 p = Purge
40 Package status:
42 n = Not-installed
44 c = Config-files
45 H = Half-installed
46 U = Unpacked
47 F = Half-configured
48 W = Triggers-awaiting
49 t = Triggers-pending
50 i = Installed
51 Error flags:
53 <empty> = (none)
55 R = Reinst-required
56 An uppercase status or error letter indicates the package is likely
58 to cause severe problems. Please refer to dpkg(1) for information
59 about the above states and flags.
60 The output format of this option is not configurable, but varies
62 automatically to fit the terminal width. It is intended for human
63 readers, and is not easily machine-readable. See -W (--show) and
64 --showformat for a way to configure the output format.
65 -W, --show [package-name-pattern...]
67 Just like the --list option this will list all packages matching
68 the given patterns. However the output can be customized using the
69 --showformat option. The default output format gives one line per
70 matching package, each line having the name (extended with the
71 architecture qualifier for Multi-Arch same packages) and installed
72 version of the package, separated by a tab.
73 -s, --status [package-name...]
75 Report status of specified packages. This just displays the entry
76 in the installed package status database. If no package-name is
77 specified it will display all package entries in the status
78 database (since dpkg 1.19.1). When multiple package-name entries
79 are listed, the requested status entries are separated by an empty
80 line, with the same order as specified on the argument list.
81 -L, --listfiles package-name...
83 List files installed to your system from package-name. When
84 multiple package-names are listed, the requested lists of files are
85 separated by an empty line, with the same order as specified on the
86 argument list.
87 Each file diversion is printed on its own line after its diverted
89 file, prefixed with one of the following localized strings:
90 locally diverted to: diverted-to
93 package diverts others to: diverted-to
94 diverted by pkg to: diverted-to
95 Hint: When machine parsing the output, it is customary to set the
97 locale to C.UTF-8 to get reproducible results.
98 This command will not list extra files created by maintainer
100 scripts, nor will it list alternatives.
101 --control-list package-name
103 List control files installed to your system from package-name
104 (since dpkg 1.16.5). These can be used as input arguments to
105 --control-show.
106 --control-show package-name control-file
108 Print the control-file installed to your system from package-name
109 to the standard output (since dpkg 1.16.5).
110 -c, --control-path package-name [control-file]
112 List paths for control files installed to your system from package-
113 name (since dpkg 1.15.4). If control-file is specified then only
114 list the path for that control file if it is present.
115 Warning: this command is deprecated as it gives direct access to
117 the internal dpkg database, please switch to use --control-list and
118 --control-show instead for all cases where those commands might
119 give the same end result. Although, as long as there is still at
120 least one case where this command is needed (i.e. when having to
121 remove a damaging postrm maintainer script), and while there is no
122 good solution for that, this command will not get removed.
123 -S, --search filename-search-pattern...
125 Search for packages that own files corresponding to the given
126 patterns. Standard shell wildcard characters can be used in the
127 pattern, where asterisk (*) and question mark (?) will match a
128 slash, and backslash (\) will be used as an escape character.
129 If the first character in the filename-search-pattern is none of
131 ‘*[?/’ then it will be considered a substring match and will be
132 implicitly surrounded by ‘*’ (as in *filename-search-pattern*). If
133 the subsequent string contains any of ‘*[?\’, then it will handled
134 like a glob pattern, otherwise any trailing ‘/’ or ‘/.’ will be
135 removed and a literal path lookup will be performed.
136 This command will not list extra files created by maintainer
138 scripts, nor will it list alternatives.
139 The output format consists of one line per matching pattern, with a
141 list of packages owning the pathname separated by a comma (U+002C
142 ‘,’) and a space (U+0020 ‘ ’), followed by a colon (U+003A ‘:’) and
143 a space, followed by the pathname. As in:
144 pkgname1, pkgname2: pathname1
146 pkgname3: pathname2
147 File diversions are printed with the following localized strings:
149 diversion by pkgname from: diverted-from
152 diversion by pkgname to: diverted-to
153 or for local diversions:
155 local diversion from: diverted-from
158 local diversion to: diverted-to
159 Hint: When machine parsing the output, it is customary to set the
161 locale to C.UTF-8 to get reproducible results.
162 -p, --print-avail [package-name...]
164 Display details about packages, as found in
165 /var/lib/dpkg/available. If no package-name is specified, it will
166 display all package entries in the available database (since dpkg
167 1.19.1). When multiple package-name are listed, the requested
168 available entries are separated by an empty line, with the same
169 order as specified on the argument list.
170 Users of APT-based frontends should use apt show package-name
172 instead as the available file is only kept up-to-date when using
173 dselect.
174 -?, --help
176 Show the usage message and exit.
177 --version
179 Show the version and exit.
180
182 --admindir=dir
183 Change the location of the dpkg database. The default location is
184 /var/lib/dpkg.
185 --root=directory
187 Set the root directory to directory, which sets the administrative
188 directory to «directory/var/lib/dpkg» (since dpkg 1.21.0).
189 --load-avail
191 Also load the available file when using the --show and --list
192 commands, which now default to only querying the status file (since
193 dpkg 1.16.2).
194 --no-pager
196 Disables the use of any pager when showing information (since dpkg
197 1.19.2).
198 -f, --showformat=format
200 This option is used to specify the format of the output --show will
201 produce (short option since dpkg 1.13.1). The format is a string
202 that will be output for each package listed.
203 In the format string, “\” introduces escapes:
205 \n newline
207 \r carriage return
208 \t tab
209 “\” before any other character suppresses any special meaning of
211 the following character, which is useful for “\” and “$”.
212 Package information can be included by inserting variable
214 references to package fields using the syntax “${field[;width]}”.
215 Fields are printed right-aligned unless the width is negative in
216 which case left alignment will be used. The following fields are
217 recognized but they are not necessarily available in the status
218 file (only internal fields or fields stored in the binary package
219 end up in it):
220 Architecture
222 Bugs
223 Conffiles (internal)
224 Config-Version (internal)
225 Conflicts
226 Breaks
227 Depends
228 Description
229 Enhances
230 Protected
231 Essential
232 Filename (internal, front-end related)
233 Homepage
234 Installed-Size
235 MD5sum (internal, front-end related)
236 MSDOS-Filename (internal, front-end related)
237 Maintainer
238 Origin
239 Package
240 Pre-Depends
241 Priority
242 Provides
243 Recommends
244 Replaces
245 Revision (obsolete)
246 Section
247 Size (internal, front-end related)
248 Source
249 Status (internal)
250 Suggests
251 Tag (usually not in .deb but in repository Packages files)
252 Triggers-Awaited (internal)
253 Triggers-Pending (internal)
254 Version
255 The following are virtual fields, generated by dpkg-query from
257 values from other fields (note that these do not use valid names
258 for fields in control files):
259 binary:Package
261 It contains the binary package name with a possible
262 architecture qualifier like “libc6:amd64” (since dpkg 1.16.2).
263 An architecture qualifier will be present to make the package
264 name unambiguous, for example if the package has a Multi-Arch
265 field with a value of same or the package is of a foreign
266 architecture.
267 binary:Synopsis
269 It contains the package short description (since dpkg 1.19.1).
270 binary:Summary
272 This is an alias for binary:Synopsis (since dpkg 1.16.2).
273 db:Status-Abbrev
275 It contains the abbreviated package status (as three
276 characters), such as “ii ” or “iHR” (since dpkg 1.16.2). See
277 the --list command description for more details.
278 db:Status-Want
280 It contains the package wanted status, part of the Status field
281 (since dpkg 1.17.11).
282 db:Status-Status
284 It contains the package status word, part of the Status field
285 (since dpkg 1.17.11).
286 db:Status-Eflag
288 It contains the package status error flag, part of the Status
289 field (since dpkg 1.17.11).
290 db-fsys:Files
292 It contains the list of the package filesystem entries
293 separated by newlines (since dpkg 1.19.3).
294 db-fsys:Last-Modified
296 It contains the timestamp in seconds of the last time the
297 package filesystem entries were modified (since dpkg 1.19.3).
298 source:Package
300 It contains the source package name for this binary package
301 (since dpkg 1.16.2).
302 source:Version
304 It contains the source package version for this binary package
305 (since dpkg 1.16.2)
306 source:Upstream-Version
308 It contains the source package upstream version for this binary
309 package (since dpkg 1.18.16)
310 The default format string is “${binary:Package}\t${Version}\n”.
312 Actually, all other fields found in the status file (i.e. user
313 defined fields) can be requested, too. They will be printed as-is,
314 though, no conversion nor error checking is done on them. To get
315 the name of the dpkg maintainer and the installed version, you
316 could run:
317 dpkg-query -f='${binary:Package} ${Version}\t${Maintainer}\n' \
319 -W dpkg
320
322 0 The requested query was successfully performed.
323 1 The requested query failed either fully or partially, due to no
325 file or package being found (except for --control-path,
326 --control-list and --control-show were such errors are fatal).
327 2 Fatal or unrecoverable error due to invalid command-line usage, or
329 interactions with the system, such as accesses to the database,
330 memory allocations, etc.
331
333 External environment
334 SHELL
335 Sets the program to execute when spawning a command via a shell
336 (since dpkg 1.19.2).
337 PAGER
339 DPKG_PAGER
340 Sets the pager command to use (since dpkg 1.19.1), which will be
341 executed with «$SHELL -c». If SHELL is not set, «sh» will be used
342 instead. The DPKG_PAGER overrides the PAGER environment variable
343 (since dpkg 1.19.2).
344 DPKG_ROOT
346 If set and the --root option has not been specified, it will be
347 used as the filesystem root directory (since dpkg 1.21.0).
348 DPKG_ADMINDIR
350 If set and the --admindir option has not been specified, it will be
351 used as the dpkg data directory.
352 DPKG_COLORS
354 Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5). The currently accepted
355 values are: auto (default), always and never.
356 Internal environment
358 LESS
359 Defined by dpkg-query to “-FRSXMQ”, if not already set, when
360 spawning a pager (since dpkg 1.19.2). To change the default
361 behavior, this variable can be preset to some other value including
362 an empty string, or the PAGER or DPKG_PAGER variables can be set to
363 disable specific options with «-+», for example DPKG_PAGER="less
364 -+F".
365
367 dpkg(1).
3681.21.8 2022-05-25 dpkg-query(1)