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NAME

       debtags  -  Command  line  interface  to  access  and manipulate Debian
       Package Tags

SYNOPSIS

       debtags [options] <command> [options and arguments]

DESCRIPTION

       debtags manages package tag data in a debian system and performs  basic
       queries on it.

       Package  data  are activated or updated in the system using the debtags
       update command; that must be run by root.  Tag data are pulled  from  a
       variety  of  sources  listed  in  /etc/debtags/sources.list  and merged
       together.

       Recently, a basic version of the tag data is also present  in  the  APT
       database.   It  is a very useful resource for applications that are not
       using debtags-specific functions (such as apt-cache or grep-dctrl), but
       it does not support local changes or merging from different sources.

       debtags itself can also be used to perform basic queries on the Debtags
       system: the vocabulary can be queried with the  tagshow  and  tagsearch
       commands;  a package tag database can be checked against the vocabulary
       with the check command; packages related to a given one (or group)  can
       be  shown  with the related command; the whole collection can be copied
       to standard output to be processed with tagcoll or other tools  by  the
       cat command; packages can be searched by tags using the grep command.

COMMANDS

       debtags  accepts  a  non-switch  argument,  that  indicates what is the
       operation that should be performed:

       help [command]
              With no arguments, print a summary of  available  commands.   If
              given  a  command  name as argument, print detailed informations
              about that command.

       update
              Collect  package  tag  data   from   the   sources   listed   in
              /etc/debtags/sources.list,   then  regenerate  the  debtags  tag
              database and main index.
              It needs to be run as root

       selfcheck
              perform a series of internal self checks using the  current  tag
              data

       check <file>
              check  that  all  the  tags  in  the given tagged collection are
              present in the tag vocabulary.  Checks the main database  if  no
              file is specified

       tagcat
              output the tag vocabulary

       tagshow
              show the vocabulary informations about a tag

       tagsearch <string [string [string ...]]>
              show a summary of all tags whose data contains the given strings

       show <pkg>
              show informations about a package, like apt-cache show does, but
              adding the tag informations from the debtags index

       related <pkg1[,pkg2[,pkg3...]]>
              Output  a  list  of  the  packages that are related to the given
              package or list of packages.  If more than one package are to be
              specified, separate them with commas.
              The --distance option can be used to control how closely related
              the output packages should be from the package(s) specified.

       cat
              output the full package tag database

       dumpavail [tag expression]
              output the full package database

       search <tag expression>
              output the names and descriptions of the packages that match the
              given tag expression

       grep <tag expression>
              output the lines of the full package tag database that match the
              given tag expression

       install <tag expression>
              Invokes apt-get install with the names of the  packages  matched
              by  the  given tag expression.  If you want to see what packages
              would be installed  you  can  use  debtags  search,  as  debtags
              install  just  calls  apt-get  install  on all the results of an
              equivalent debtags search.  Please note that debtags install  is
              just  a  prototype  feature  useful  for  experimenting  in some
              environments like Custom Debian Distributions.  For this  reason
              it  is  suggested  that  you  use  debtags just as a way to find
              packages, and proper package managers as the way to install them

       diff or mkpatch [filename]
              create  a tag patch between the current tag database and the tag
              collection [filename].  Standard input is used  if  filename  is
              not specified

       maintainers
              create  a  tagged  collection of maintainers and the tags of the
              packages they maintain

       tag {add|rm|ls} <package> [tags...]
              General manipulation of tags, useful for automation in  scripts.
              It can be used in three ways:
              tag  add  <package>  <tags...>  will  add  the tags to the given
              package
              tag rm <package> <tags...> will remove the tags from  the  given
              package
              tag  ls <package> will output the names of the tags of the given
              package

       submit [patch]
              mail the given patch  file  to  the  central  tag  repository.If
              [patch] is omitted, mail the local tag modifications.

       todo
              print a list of the installed packages that are not yet tagged

       score
              score  uninstalled  packages  according  to how often their tags
              appear in the packages that are installed already

       stats
              print statistics about Debtags

       smartsearch <word [word1 [+tag [-tag1 ...]]]>
              Perform a keyword search integrated with related packages.
              A + prefix indicates a wanted tag.   A  -  prefix  indicates  an
              unwanted tag.  Other words indicate keywords to search.
              Remember  to  use '--' before unwanted tags to avoid having them
              interpreted as command line switches.

       vocfilter tagfile
              filter out the tags that are not found in the  given  vocabulary
              file

OPTIONS

       This  program  follows  the  usual  GNU  command line syntax, with long
       options starting with two dashes (`-').

       Every one of the commands listed above has its own set of options.   To
       keep  this  manpage  readable,  all the options are presented together.
       Please refer to  "debtags  help  command"  to  see  which  options  are
       accepted by a given command.

       Help options:

       -h, -?, --help
              print commandline help and exit.

       --version
              print the program version and exit.

       --manpage=[hooks]
              output the debtags manpage and exit.

       Other options:

       -v, --verbose
              enable verbose output.

       --debug
              enable debugging output (including verbose output).  Options for
              command help
              Options for command update

              Other options:

       --local
              do not download files when performing an update.

       --reindex
              do not download any file, just do reindexing if needed.  Options
              for command selfcheck
              Options for command check
              Options for command tagcat
              Options for command tagshow
              Options for command tagsearch
              Options for command show
              Options for command related

              Other options:

       -d distance, --distance=distance
              set  the  maximum  distance  to  use  for  the "related" command
              (defaults to 0).  Options for command cat

              Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options controlling transformations of tag data on output:

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       --facets
              output only the names of the facets (mainly used  for  computing
              statistics).

       Options for command dumpavail

       Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options controlling transformations of package data on output:

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       --short
              output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

       --full output the full record of package data.

       Options for command search

       Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options controlling transformations of package data on output:

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       --short
              output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

       --full output the full record of package data.

       Options for command grep

       Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options controlling transformations of tag data on output:

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       --facets
              output  only  the names of the facets (mainly used for computing
              statistics).

       Options for command install

       Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options for command diff
       Options for command maintainers

       Options controlling transformations of tag data on output:

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       --facets
              output only the names of the facets (mainly used  for  computing
              statistics).

       Options for command tag
       Options for command submit
       Options for command todo

       Options controlling transformations of package data on output:

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       --short
              output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

       --full output the full record of package data.

       Options for command score
       Options for command stats
       Options for command smartsearch

       Other options:

       --relevant
              only print the tag names sorted by increasing relevance.

       --discriminant
              only  print  the  tag  names sorted by increasing discriminance.
              Options for command vocfilter

              Other options:

       --vocabulary=file
              vocabulary  file  to  use  instead  of   the   current   debtags
              vocabulary.

EXAMPLES

       Here are some example invocations of debtags:

         # Update the package tag database
         debtags update

         # Show apt-cache informations about the mutt package,
         # adding tag informations
         debtags show mutt

         # Show packages related to mutt
         # (adjust the distance as needed)
         debtags related -d 7 mutt

         # Show packages related to galeon and mozilla-browser
         # (adjust the distance as needed)
         debtags related -d 5 galeon,mozilla-browser

         # Search the tag vocabulary for mail-related tags
         debtags tagsearch mail

         # Output a list of all packages which can edit raster images, excluding
         # shared libraries and dummy packages
         debtags search "use::editing && media::rasterimage && \
                       ! (role::aux-shlib || role::aux-dummy)"

         # Show all mail clients
         debtags search 'works-with::mail && role::sw:client'

         # Output the collection of all mail clients, ready to be reprocessed via
         # tagcoll
         debtags grep 'works-with::mail && role::sw:client'

         # Produce an easily navigable hierarchy with the collection data
         debtags cat | tagcoll hierarchy

         # Produce a local tag patch
         debtags cat > work-tags
         ...edit work-tags...
         debtags mkpatch work-tags > my-tagpatch

         # Produce a local tag patch with tagcolledit
         debtags cat > orig-tags
         debtags cat > work-tags
         tagcolledit work-tags
         tagcoll diff orig-tags work-tags > my-tagpatch

         # Submit the patch
         debtags submit my-tagpatch

         # Install all IRC clients
         debtags install 'protocol::irc && role::sw:client'

         # Look for friends ;)
         # (adjust the distance as needed)
         debtags maintainers | tagcoll related -d 12 'Enrico Zini <enrico@debian.org>'

FILES

       /var/lib/debtags/vocabulary
              The normative tag vocabulary

       /etc/debtags/sources.list
              The list of sources to build the package tags database from

       /var/lib/debtags/package-tags
              The  system  package  tags  database,  only  kept  as  an easily
              parsable reference.  In the same directory there is a the binary
              index  with  the  same  content,  used  by applications for fast
              access.

SEE ALSO

       debtags-edit(1), tagcoll(1), tagcolledit(1), apt-cache(1),
       http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/
       http://debian.vitavonni.de/packagebrowser/

AUTHOR

       debtags is maintained by enrico@enricozini.org.

       This manpage has been automatically generated by the debtags program.