dpkg-query(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | SECURITY | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

dpkg-query(1)                  dpkg suite                  dpkg-query(1)

NAME         top

       dpkg-query - a tool to query the dpkg database

SYNOPSIS         top

       dpkg-query [option...] command

DESCRIPTION         top

       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 patterns. However the output can be
           customized using the --showformat option.

           The default output format gives one line per matching
           package, each line consisting of the package name and its
           installed version, separated by a tab.  The package name will
           be architecture qualified for packages with a Multi-Arch
           field with the value same or with a foreign architecture,
           which is an architecture that is neither the native one nor
           all.

       -s, --status [package-name...]
           Report status of specified packages. 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-names are listed, the requested lists of
           files are separated by an empty line, with the same order as
           specified on the argument list.

           Each file diversion is printed on its own line after its
           diverted file, prefixed with one of the following localized
           strings:

             locally diverted to: diverted-to
             package diverts others to: diverted-to
             diverted by pkg to: diverted-to

           Hint: When machine parsing the output, it is customary to set
           the locale to C.UTF-8 to get reproducible results. On some
           systems this might also require adapting the LANGUAGE
           environment variable appropriately if it is already set (see
           locale(7)).

           This command will not list extra files created by maintainer
           scripts, nor will it list alternatives.

       --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
           patterns.  Standard shell wildcard characters can be used in
           the pattern, where asterisk (*) and question mark (?) will
           match a slash, and backslash (\) 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.

           The output format consists of one line per matching pattern,
           with a list of packages owning the pathname separated by a
           comma (U+002C ‘,’) and a space (U+0020 ‘ ’), followed by a
           colon (U+003A ‘:’) and a space, followed by the pathname. As
           in:

             pkgname1, pkgname2: pathname1
             pkgname3: pathname2

           File diversions are printed with the following localized
           strings:

             diversion by pkgname from: diverted-from
             diversion by pkgname to: diverted-to

           or for local diversions:

             local diversion from: diverted-from
             local diversion to: diverted-to

           Hint: When machine parsing the output, it is customary to set
           the locale to C.UTF-8 to get reproducible results.

       -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 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.

       --root=directory
           Set the root directory to directory, which sets the
           administrative directory to
           «directory/usr/local/var/lib/dpkg» (since dpkg 1.21.0).

       --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
           Protected
           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 packages with a
               Multi-Arch field with the value same or with a foreign
               architecture, which is an architecture that is neither
               the native one nor all.

           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 -f='${binary:Package} ${Version}\t${Maintainer}\n' \
             -W 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_ROOT
           If set and the --root option has not been specified, it will
           be used as the filesystem root directory (since dpkg 1.21.0).

       DPKG_ADMINDIR
           If set and the --admindir option has not been specified, it
           will be used as the dpkg data directory.

       DPKG_DEBUG
           Sets the debug mask (since dpkg 1.21.10) from an octal value.
           The currently accepted flags are described in the dpkg
           --debug option, but not all these flags might have an effect
           on this program.

       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".

SECURITY         top

       Query operations should never require root, and delegating their
       execution to unprivileged users via some gain-root command can
       have security implications (such as privilege escalation), for
       example when a pager is automatically invoked by the tool.

SEE ALSO         top

       dpkg(1).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨git
       clone https://git.dpkg.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2023-12-18.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

1.22.1-2-gddb42                2023-10-30                  dpkg-query(1)

Pages that refer to this page: dpkg(1)dpkg-deb(1)