NAME¶
dpkg-query - a tool to query the dpkg database
SYNOPSIS¶
dpkg-query [
option...]
command
DESCRIPTION¶
dpkg-query is a tool to show information about packages listed in the
dpkg database.
COMMANDS¶
- -l, --list
[package-name-pattern...]
- List packages matching given pattern. If no
package-name-pattern is given, list all packages in
/var/lib/dpkg/status, excluding the ones marked as not-installed
(i.e. those which have been previously purged). Normal shell wildchars are
allowed in package-name-pattern. Please note you will probably have
to quote package-name-pattern to prevent the shell from performing
filename expansion. For example this will list all package names starting
with “libc6”:
dpkg-query -l 'libc6*'
The first three columns of the output show the desired action, the package
status, and errors, in that order.
Desired action:
u = Unknown
i = Install
h = Hold
r = Remove
p = Purge
Package status:
n = Not-installed
c = Config-files
H = Half-installed
U = Unpacked
F = Half-configured
W = Triggers-awaiting
t = Triggers-pending
i = Installed
Error flags:
<empty> = (none)
R = Reinst-required
An uppercase status or error letter indicates the package is likely to cause
severe problems. Please refer to dpkg(1) for information about the
above states and flags.
The output format of this option is not configurable, but varies
automatically to fit the terminal width. It is intended for human readers,
and is not easily machine-readable. See -W (--show) and
--showformat for a way to configure the output format.
- -W, --show
[package-name-pattern...]
- Just like the --list option this will list all
packages matching the given pattern. However the output can be customized
using the --showformat option. The default output format gives one
line per matching package, each line having the name (extended with the
architecture qualifier for Multi-Arch same packages) and
installed version of the package, separated by a tab.
- -s, --status package-name...
- Report status of specified package. This just displays the
entry in the installed package status database. When multiple
package-name are listed, the requested status entries are separated
by an empty line, with the same order as specified on the argument
list.
- -L, --listfiles package-name...
- List files installed to your system from
package-name. When multiple package-name are listed, the
requested lists of files are separated by an empty line, with the same
order as specified on the argument list. However, note that files created
by package-specific installation-scripts are not listed.
- --control-list package-name
- List control files installed to your system from
package-name. These can be used as input arguments to
--control-show.
- --control-show package-name
control-file
- Print the control-file installed to your system from
package-name to the standard output.
- -c, --control-path package-name
[control-file]
- List paths for control files installed to your system from
package-name. If control-file is specified then only list
the path for that control file if it is present. Warning: this
command is deprecated, please switch to use --control-list and
--control-show instead.
- -S, --search
filename-search-pattern...
- Search for packages that own files corresponding to the
given pattern. Standard shell wildchars can be used in the pattern. This
command will not list extra files created by maintainer scripts, nor will
it list alternatives.
- -p, --print-avail package-name...
- Display details about package-name, as found in
/var/lib/dpkg/available. When multiple package-name are
listed, the requested available entries are separated by an empty
line, with the same order as specified on the argument list.
Users of APT-based frontends should use apt-cache show
package-name instead as the available file is only kept
up-to-date when using dselect.
- -?, --help
- Show the usage message and exit.
- --version
- Show the version and exit.
OPTIONS¶
- --admindir=dir
- Change the location of the dpkg database. The
default location is /var/lib/dpkg.
- --load-avail
- Also load the available file when using the --show
and --list commands, which now default to only querying the status
file.
- -f, --showformat=format
- This option is used to specify the format of the output
--show will produce. The format is a string that will be output for
each package listed.
In the format string, “ \” introduces escapes:
\n newline
\r carriage return
\t tab
“ \” before any other character suppresses any special
meaning of the following character, which is useful for “
\” and “ $”.
Package information can be included by inserting variable references to
package fields using the syntax “
${field[;width] }”. Fields are
printed right-aligned unless the width is negative in which case left
alignment will be used. The following fields are recognized but
they are not necessarily available in the status file (only internal
fields or fields stored in the binary package end up in it):
Architecture
Bugs
Conffiles (internal)
Config-Version (internal)
Conflicts
Breaks
Depends
Description
Enhances
Essential
Filename (internal, front-end related)
Homepage
Installed-Size
MD5sum (internal, front-end related)
MSDOS-Filename (internal, front-end related)
Maintainer
Origin
Package
Pre-Depends
Priority
Provides
Recommends
Replaces
Revision (obsolete)
Section
Size (internal, front-end related)
Source
Status (internal)
Suggests
Tag (usually not in .deb but in repository Packages files)
Triggers-Awaited (internal)
Triggers-Pending (internal)
Version
The following are virtual fields, generated by dpkg-query from values
from other fields (note that these do not use valid names for fields in
control files):
binary:Package
binary:Summary
db:Status-Abbrev
source:Package
source:Version
The default format string is “
${binary:Package}\t${Version}\n”. Actually, all other fields
found in the status file (i.e. user defined fields) can be requested, too.
They will be printed as-is, though, no conversion nor error checking is
done on them. binary:Package is a special field that will print the
package name with an architecture qualifier (like "libc6:amd64")
if the package has a Multi-Arch field with a value of same,
and as such its name could be ambiguous. To get the name of the dpkg
maintainer and the installed version, you could run:
dpkg-query -W -f='${binary:Package} ${Version}\t${Maintainer}\n' dpkg
EXIT STATUS¶
- 0
- The requested query was successfully performed.
- 1
- Problems were encountered while parsing the command line or
performing the query, including no file or package being found (except for
--control-path).
ENVIRONMENT¶
- DPKG_ADMINDIR
- If set and the --admindir option has not been
specified, it will be used as the dpkg data directory.
- COLUMNS
- This setting influences the output of the --list
option by changing the width of its output.
SEE ALSO¶
dpkg(1).