apt-file - APT package searching utility -- command-line interface

apt-file [ options ] [ action ] [ pattern ]

apt-file is a command line tool for searching packages for the APT packaging system.

Some actions are required to run the search:

update

Resynchronize the package contents from their sources. The contents packages are fetched from the location(s) specified in /etc/apt/sources.list. This command attempt to fetch the Contents-<ARCH>.gz file from remote source.

search

Search in which package file is included. A list of all package containing the pattern pattern is returned.

list

List the contents of a package matching the pattern pattern. This action is very close to the dpkg -S command except the package does not need to be installed or fetched.

list

Alias for list.

purge

remove all Contents-<ARCH>.gz files in cache directory.

--cache | -c cache-directory

Sets the cache directory to cache-directory instead of its default value (/var/cache/apt) thus you can use apt-file even if you do not have administrator privileges.

--verbose | -v

Run apt-file in verbose mode.

--cdrom-mount | -d cdrom-mount-point

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

--ignore-case | -i

Do not expand pattern.

--regexp | -x

Treat pattern as a regular expression.

--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 the one installed on your system.

--sources-list | -s sources.list

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

--package-only | -l

Only display package name. Do not display file names.

--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.

The apt-file configuration file (/etc/apt/apt-file.conf) changed from version 1 to version 2. Now only fetch backends are defined in the configuration file. Thus it is much easier to configure proxies.

A string expension is done on several value. See string expension section.

destination

This variable describes how cached files will be named.

http | ftp | ssh | rsh | file | cdrom

Here are the commands used to fetch files.

STRING EXPENSION

	  deb uri dist componant1 componant2 ...
	

	  proto:/[/][user[:password]@]host[:port][/path]
	

/etc/apt/sources.list

Locations to fetch packages contents from.

/etc/apt/apt-file.conf

Configuration file for apt-file.

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/

cdrom backend has not been tested.

Non-release line in sources.list is not handled by apt-file.

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