NAME
apt-file - APT package searching utility -- command-line interface
SYNOPSIS
apt-file [ options ] [ action ] [ pattern ]
apt-file -f [ options ] search [ file ... ]
apt-file -D [ options ] search [ binary-packet.deb ... ]
DESCRIPTION
apt-file is a command line tool for searching files in packages for the
APT package management system.
Some actions are required to run the search:
update Resynchronize the package contents from their sources. The lists
of the contents of packages are fetched from the location(s)
specified in /etc/apt/sources.list. This command attempts to
fetch the Contents-<ARCH>.gz files from remote sources. For
downloading these uses either the curl or wget commands as
specified in apt-file.conf.
search Search in which package a file is included. A list of all
packages containing the pattern pattern is returned.
apt-file will only search for filenames, not directory names.
This is due to the format of the Contents files it searches.
find Alias for search.
list List the contents of a package matching the pattern pattern.
This action is very close to the dpkg -L command except the
package does not need to be installed or fetched.
show Alias for list.
purge remove all Contents-* files from the cache directory.
OPTIONS
--cache | -c cache-directory
Sets the cache directory to cache-directory instead of its
default. If executed as non-root user, the default is
$HOME/.cache/apt-file with fall-back to /var/cache/apt/apt-file.
The latter is also the default if apt-file is called as root.
--verbose | -v
Run apt-file in verbose mode.
--cdrom-mount | -d cdrom-mount-point
Use cdrom-mount-point instead of apt’s.
--non-interactive | -N
Skip schemes that are listed in the interactive line in apt-
file.conf. This is useful if you want to call ’apt-file update’
in cron jobs and skip all schemes that may require user input.
--ignore-case | -i
Ignore case when searching for pattern.
--regexp | -x
Treat pattern as a (perl) regular expression. See perlreref(1)
for details. Without this option, pattern is treated as a
literal string to search for.
--version | -V
Show version number.
--architecture | -a architecture
Sets architecture to architecture. This option is useful if you
search a package for a different architecture from the one
installed on your system. It determines how the $ARCH variable
in sources.list is expanded (but it does not influence the
search in any other way).
--sources-list | -s sources.list
Sets the sources.list file to a different value from its default
/etc/apt/sources.list.
--package-only | -l
Only display package name; do not display file names.
--from-file | -f
Read patterns from the given file(s), one per line. Use -f -
for stdin. This is much faster than invoking apt-file many
times.
--from-deb | -D
Use contents of the given .deb archives(s) as patterns. Useful
for searching for file conflicts with other packages. Implies
-F.
--fixed-string | -F
Do not expand search pattern with generic characters at
pattern’s start and end.
--dummy | -y
Run in dummy mode (no action).
--help | -h
Display a short help screen.
CONFIGURATION FILE
The apt-file configuration file can be found in /etc/apt/apt-file.conf.
A string expansion is done on several values. See the string expansion
section.
destination
This variable describes how cached files will be named.
http | ftp | ssh | rsh | file | cdrom
Defines the commands used to fetch files.
STRING EXPANSION
A sources.list entry is defined as:
deb uri dist component1 component2 ...
A uri is defined as:
proto:/[/][user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
<host> replace with the hostname
<port> replace with the port number
<uri> replace with full uri
<path> replace with full path (relative to / on the host)
<dist> replace with distribution name
<comp> replace with component name
<cache>
replace with cache directory
<dest> replace with destination expanded value.
<cdrom>
replace with cdrom-mount-point.
FILES
/etc/apt/sources.list
Locations to fetch package contents from.
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/
Directory with additional sources.list snippets
/etc/apt/apt-file.conf
Configuration file for apt-file.
SEE ALSO
auto-apt(1), apt-cache(8), apt-cdrom(8), dpkg(8), dselect(8),
sources.list(5), apt.conf(5), apt_preferences(5).
The APT users guide in /usr/share/doc/apt/
BUGS
The cdrom backend has not been tested.
Non-release lines in sources.list are not handled by apt-file.
There is only one Contents file per distribution that contains all
components (i.e. main, contrib, and non-free). Threrefore, apt-file
will display search results from all components, even if not all
components are included in the sources.list file.
When a new line has been added to the sources.list and apt-file update
has not been run, apt-file does not print a warning message.
Complex regular expressions that match the leading slash may not work
correctly. As a workaround, try to pull the leading slash to the
beginning of the regular expression. For example, use
"/(usr/bin/vim|sbin/lvm)" instead of "/usr/bin/vim|/sbin/lvm".
AUTHOR
apt-file was written by Sebastien J. Gross <sjg@debian.org>.
27 May 2010