apt-file

1

apt-file

APT package searching utility -- command-line interface

          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:

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.

purge

- remove all `Contents-*` files from the cache directory.

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.

show

- Alias for `list`.

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`.

## OPTIONS

`-a, --architecture` 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).

`-c, --cache` `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.

`-d, --cdrom-mount` `cdrom-mount-point`

- Use `cdrom-mount-point` instead of `apt`'s.

`-D, --from-deb`

- Use contents of the given .deb archives(s) as patterns. Useful for searching for file conflicts with other packages. Implies `-F`.

`-f, --from-file`

- Read patterns from the given file(s), one per line. Use `-` as filename for stdin. If no files are given, then the list will be read from stdin. This is much faster than invoking apt-file many times.

`-F, --fixed-string`

- Do not expand search pattern with generic characters at pattern's start and end.

`-i, --ignore-case`

- Ignore case when searching for `pattern`.

`-l, --package-only`

- Only display package name; do not display file names.

`-N, --non-interactive`

- 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.

`-s, --sources-list` sources.list

- Sets the `sources.list` file to a different value from its default `/etc/apt/sources.list`.

`-v, --verbose`

- Run `apt-file` in verbose mode.

`-x, --regexp`

- 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.

`-y, --dummy`

- Run in dummy mode (no action).

`-h, --help`

- 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`.

## 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".

## 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/`

## AUTHOR

`apt-file` was written by Sebastien J. Gross sjg@debian.org.