Provided by: dpkg_1.19.7ubuntu3.2_amd64 
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...]
Just like the --list option this will list all packages matching the given pattern. However the
output can be customized using the --showformat option. The default output format gives one line
per matching package, each line having the name (extended with the architecture qualifier for
Multi-Arch same packages) and installed version of the package, separated by a tab.
-s, --status [package-name...]
Report status of specified package. 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, --listfiles package-name...
List files installed to your system from package-name. When multiple package-name are listed, the
requested lists of files are separated by an empty line, with the same order as specified on the
argument list. However, note that files created by package-specific installation-scripts are not
listed.
--control-list package-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-show package-name control-file
Print the control-file installed to your system from package-name to the standard output (since
dpkg 1.16.5).
-c, --control-path package-name [control-file]
List paths for control files installed to your system from package-name (since dpkg 1.15.4). If
control-file is specified then only list the path for that control file if it is present.
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, --search filename-search-pattern...
Search for packages that own files corresponding to the given pattern. Standard shell wildcard
characters can be used in the pattern, where asterisk (*) and question mark (?) will match a
slash, and backslash (\) will be used as an escape character.
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.
-p, --print-avail [package-name...]
Display details about packages, as found in /var/lib/dpkg/available. If no package-name is
specified, it will display all package entries in the available database (since dpkg 1.19.1).
When multiple package-name are listed, the requested available entries are separated by an empty
line, with the same order as specified on the argument list.
Users of APT-based frontends should use apt-cache show package-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.
--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
This option is used to specify the format of the output --show will produce (short option since
dpkg 1.13.1). The format is a string that will be output for each package listed.
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
Enhances
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
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 example if the package has a Multi-Arch field with a value of
same or the package is of a foreign architecture.
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 -W -f='${binary:Package} ${Version}\t${Maintainer}\n' 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
Sets the pager command to use (since dpkg 1.19.1), which will be executed with «$SHELL -c». If
SHELL is not set, «sh» will be used instead. The DPKG_PAGER overrides the PAGER environment
variable (since dpkg 1.19.2).
DPKG_ADMINDIR
If set and the --admindir option has not been specified, it will be used as the dpkg data
directory.
DPKG_COLORS
Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5). The currently accepted values are: auto (default),
always and never.
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".
SEE ALSO
dpkg(1).