dpkg-query(1)

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 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 /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...]

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, --listfilespackage-name...

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-listpackage-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-showpackage-namecontrol-file

Print the control-file installed to your system from package-name to the standard output (since dpkg 1.16.5).

-c, --control-pathpackage-name [control-file]

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, --searchfilename-search-pattern...

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:

bash

  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...]

Users of APT-based frontends should use apt showpackage-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.

--root=directory

Set the root directory to directory, which sets the administrative directory to «directory/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

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

Description-md5 (internal, front-end related)

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

SHA1 (internal, front-end related)

SHA256 (internal, front-end related)

SHA512 (internal, front-end related)

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#

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#

External environment#

SHELL

Sets the program to execute when spawning a command via a shell (since dpkg 1.19.2).

PAGER

DPKG_PAGER

The DPKG_PAGER overrides the PAGER environment variable (since dpkg 1.19.2). If none of the programs pointed by DPKG_PAGER or PAGER are present, the following programs will be tried in order (since dpkg 1.22.12): the default pager pager, then less, more, and finally cat.

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.

DPKG_NLS

If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native Language Support, also known as internationalization (or i18n) support (since dpkg 1.22.7). The accepted values are: 0 and 1 (default).

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#

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#

dpkg(1).