dpkg-query is a tool to show information about packages listed in
the dpkg database.
COMMANDS top
-l, --list [package-name-pattern...]
List all known packages matching one or more patterns,
regardless of their status, which includes any real or
virtual package referenced in any dependency relationship
field (such as Breaks, Enhances, etc.). If no package-
name-pattern is given, list all packages in
/usr/local/var/lib/dpkg/status, excluding the ones marked
as not-installed (i.e. those which have been previously
purged). Normal shell wildcard characters 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. If no
package-name is specified it will display all package
entries in the status database (since dpkg 1.19.1). When
multiple package-name entries 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 (since dpkg 1.16.5). 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 (since dpkg 1.16.5).
-c, --control-path package-name [control-file]
List paths for control files installed to your system from
package-name (since dpkg 1.15.4). If control-file is
specified then only list the path for that control file if
it is present.
Warning: this command is deprecated as it gives direct
access to the internal dpkg database, please switch to use
--control-list and --control-show instead for all cases
where those commands might give the same end result.
Although, as long as there is still at least one case
where this command is needed (i.e. when having to remove a
damaging postrm maintainer script), and while there is no
good solution for that, this command will not get removed.
-S, --search filename-search-pattern...
Search for packages that own files corresponding to the
given pattern. Standard shell wildcard characters can be
used in the pattern, where asterisk (*) and question mark
(?) will match a slash, and blackslash (\) will be used as
an escape character.
If the first character in the filename-search-pattern is
none of ‘*[?/’ then it will be considered a substring
match and will be implicitly surrounded by ‘*’ (as in
*filename-search-pattern*). If the subsequent string
contains any of ‘*[?\’, then it will handled like a glob
pattern, otherwise any trailing ‘/’ or ‘/.’ will be
removed and a literal path lookup will be performed.
This command will not list extra files created by
maintainer scripts, nor will it list alternatives.
-p, --print-avail [package-name...]
Display details about packages, as found in
/usr/local/var/lib/dpkg/available. If no package-name is
specified, it will display all package entries in the
available database (since dpkg 1.19.1). 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 top
--admindir=dir
Change the location of the dpkg database. The default
location is /usr/local/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 (since dpkg 1.16.2).
--no-pager
Disables the use of any pager when showing information
(since dpkg 1.19.2).
-f, --showformat=format
This option is used to specify the format of the output
--show will produce (short option since dpkg 1.13.1). 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
It contains the binary package name with a possible
architecture qualifier like “libc6:amd64” (since
dpkg 1.16.2). An architecture qualifier will be
present to make the package name unambiguous, for
example if the package has a Multi-Arch field with
a value of same or the package is of a foreign
architecture.
binary:Synopsis
It contains the package short description (since
dpkg 1.19.1).
binary:Summary
This is an alias for binary:Synopsis (since dpkg
1.16.2).
db:Status-Abbrev
It contains the abbreviated package status (as
three characters), such as “ii ” or “iHR” (since
dpkg 1.16.2). See the --list command description
for more details.
db:Status-Want
It contains the package wanted status, part of the
Status field (since dpkg 1.17.11).
db:Status-Status
It contains the package status word, part of the
Status field (since dpkg 1.17.11).
db:Status-Eflag
It contains the package status error flag, part of
the Status field (since dpkg 1.17.11).
db-fsys:Files
It contains the list of the package filesystem
entries separated by newlines (since dpkg 1.19.3).
db-fsys:Last-Modified
It contains the timestamp in seconds of the last
time the package filesystem entries were modified
(since dpkg 1.19.3).
source:Package
It contains the source package name for this binary
package (since dpkg 1.16.2).
source:Version
It contains the source package version for this
binary package (since dpkg 1.16.2)
source:Upstream-Version
It contains the source package upstream version for
this binary package (since dpkg 1.18.16)
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. 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 top
0 The requested query was successfully performed.
1 The requested query failed either fully or partially, due
to no file or package being found (except for
--control-path, --control-list and --control-show were
such errors are fatal).
2 Fatal or unrecoverable error due to invalid command-line
usage, or interactions with the system, such as accesses
to the database, memory allocations, etc.
ENVIRONMENT top
External environment
SHELL Sets the program to execute when spawning a command via a
shell (since dpkg 1.19.2).
PAGER
DPKG_PAGER
Sets the pager command to use (since dpkg 1.19.1), which
will be executed with «$SHELL -c». If SHELL is not set,
«sh» will be used instead. The DPKG_PAGER overrides the
PAGER environment variable (since dpkg 1.19.2).
DPKG_ADMINDIR
If set and the --admindir option has not been specified,
it will be used as the dpkg data directory.
DPKG_COLORS
Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5). The currently
accepted values are: auto (default), always and never.
Internal environment
LESS Defined by dpkg-query to “-FRSXMQ”, if not already set,
when spawning a pager (since dpkg 1.19.2). To change the
default behavior, this variable can be preset to some
other value including an empty string, or the PAGER or
DPKG_PAGER variables can be set to disable specific
options with «-+», for example DPKG_PAGER="less -+F".
source : https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/dpkg-query.1.html
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