Provided by: dpkg_1.22.11ubuntu3_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 patterns.
However the output can be customized using the --showformat option.
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, --listfiles package-name...
List files installed to your system from package-name. When multiple package-names
are listed, the requested lists of files are separated by an empty line, with the same
order as specified on the argument list.
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-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 patterns. 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.
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:
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...]
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 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.
--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
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
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
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_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).