NAME

       debtags - Command line interface to access and manipulate Debian Package Tags

SYNOPSIS

       debtags [options] <command> [options and arguments]

DESCRIPTION

       debtags manages package tag data in a debian system and performs basic queries on it.

       debtags  can  be  used to perform basic queries on the Debtags system: the vocabulary can be queried with
       the tagshow and tagsearch commands; a package tag database can be checked against the vocabulary with the
       check command; the whole collection can be copied to standard output to  be  processed  with  tagcoll  or
       other  tools  by  the cat command; packages can be searched by tags using the grep command. Finally, tags
       can be listed with tag ls, edited with the tag add and tag rm, and submitted to the Debtags database with
       submit.

       The update command can be used to download extra tags as listed  in  /etc/debtags/sources.list:  see  the
       contents of that file for more information.

COMMANDS

       debtags accepts a non-switch argument, that indicates what is the operation that should be performed:

       help [command]
              With  no  arguments,  print a summary of available commands.  If given a command name as argument,
              print detailed informations about that command.

       cat
              output the full package tag database

       check <file>
              check that all the tags in the given tagged collection are present in the tag vocabulary.   Checks
              the main database if no file is specified

       diff or mkpatch [filename]
              create  a  tag patch between the current tag database and the tag collection [filename].  Standard
              input is used if filename is not specified

       dumpavail [tag expression]
              output the full package database

       grep <tag expression>
              output the lines of the full package tag database that match  the  given  tag  expression.  A  tag
              expression  (given as a single argument) is an arbitrarily complex binary expression of tag names.
              For example: role::program && ((use::editing || use::viewing) && !works-with::text)

       search <tag expression>
              output the names and descriptions of the packages that match the given tag expression

       show <pkg>
              show informations about a package, like apt-cache show does, but adding the tag informations  from
              the debtags index

       submit [patch]
              upload  the  given patch file to the central tag repository. If [patch] is omitted, mail the local
              tag modifications (uses debtags-submit-patch)

       tag {add|rm|ls} <package> [tags...]
              General manipulation of tags, useful for automation in scripts.
              It can be used in three ways:
              tag add <package> <tags...> will add the tags to the given package
              tag rm <package> <tags...> will remove the tags from the given package
              tag ls <package> will output the names of the tags of the given package

       tagcat
              output the tag vocabulary

       tagshow
              show the vocabulary informations about a tag

       tagsearch <string [string [string ...]]>
              show a summary of all tags whose data contains the given strings

       update
              Collect package tag data from the sources listed in /etc/debtags/sources.list, then regenerate the
              debtags tag database and main index.
              It needs to be run as root

       vocfilter tagfile
              filter out the tags that are not found in the given vocabulary file

OPTIONS

       This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`-').

       Every one of the commands listed above has its own set of options.  To keep this  manpage  readable,  all
       the  options  are  presented  together.   Please refer to "debtags help command" to see which options are
       accepted by a given command.

       Help options:

       -h, -?, --help
              print commandline help and exit.

       --version
              print the program version and exit.

       --manpage=[hooks]
              output the debtags manpage and exit.

       Other options:

       -v, --verbose
              enable verbose output.

       --debug
              enable debugging output (including verbose output).  Options for command help
              Options for command cat

              Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options controlling transformations of tag data on output:

       --facets
              output only the names of the facets (mainly used for computing statistics).

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       Options for command check
       Options for command diff
       Options for command dumpavail

       Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options controlling transformations of package data on output:

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       --full output the full record of package data.

       --short
              output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

       Options for command grep

       Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options controlling transformations of tag data on output:

       --facets
              output only the names of the facets (mainly used for computing statistics).

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       Options for command search

       Options controlling matching of packages:

       -i, --invert
              invert the match, selecting non-matching items.

       Options controlling transformations of package data on output:

       --names
              output only the names of the packages.

       -q, --quiet
              do not write anything to standard output.

       --full output the full record of package data.

       --short
              output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

       Options for command show
       Options for command submit
       Options for command tag
       Options for command tagcat
       Options for command tagshow
       Options for command tagsearch
       Options for command update

       --local
              do not download files when performing an update.

       --reindex
              do not download any file, just do reindexing if needed.

       Options for command vocfilter

       --vocabulary=file
              vocabulary file to use instead of the current debtags vocabulary.

EXAMPLES

       Here are some example invocations of debtags:

         # Update the package tag database
         debtags update

         # Show apt-cache informations about the mutt package,
         # adding tag informations
         debtags show mutt

         # Search the tag vocabulary for mail-related tags
         debtags tagsearch mail

         # Output a list of all packages which can edit raster images, excluding
         # shared libraries and dummy packages
         debtags search "use::editing && works-with::image:raster && \
                       ! (role::shared-lib || role::dummy)"

         # Show all mail clients
         debtags search 'works-with::mail && network::client'

         # Output the collection of all mail clients, ready to be reprocessed via
         # tagcoll
         debtags grep 'works-with::mail && network::client'

         # Produce an easily navigable hierarchy with the collection data
         debtags cat | tagcoll hierarchy

         # Produce a local tag patch
         debtags cat > work-tags
         ...edit work-tags...
         debtags diff work-tags > my-tagpatch

         # Submit the patch
         debtags submit my-tagpatch

FILES

       /var/lib/debtags/vocabulary
              The normative tag vocabulary

       /var/lib/debtags/package-tags
              The system package tags database, only  kept  as  an  easily  parsable  reference.   In  the  same
              directory there is a the binary index with the same content, used by applications for fast access.

       /etc/debtags/sources.list
              The list of sources to build the package tags database from

SEE ALSO

       tagcoll(1), axi-cache(1),
       http://wiki.debian.org/Debtags
       http://debtags.debian.net

AUTHOR

       debtags is maintained by enrico@enricozini.org.

       This manpage has been automatically generated by the debtags program.

1.12                                            February 23, 2014                                     DEBTAGS(1)