apt-patterns - Man Page

Starting with version 2​.0, APT provides support for patterns, which can be used to query the apt cache for packages​.

These patterns provide the basic means to combine other patterns into more complex expressions, as well as ?true and ?false patterns​.

?and(PATTERN, PATTERN, ​.​.​.), PATTERN PATTERN ​.​.​.

Selects objects where all specified patterns match​.

?false, ~F

Selects nothing​.

?not(PATTERN), !PATTERN

Selects objects where PATTERN does not match​.

?or(PATTERN, PATTERN, ​.​.​.), PATTERN | PATTERN | ​.​.​.

Selects objects where at least one of the specified patterns match​.

?true, ~T

Selects all objects​.

(PATTERN)

Selects the same as PATTERN, can be used to work around precedence, for example, (~ramd64|~ri386)~nfoo

?all-versions(PATTERN)

Selects packages where all versions match PATTERN​. When matching versions instead, same as PATTERN​.

?any-version(PATTERN)

Selects any version where the pattern matches on the version​.

For example, while ?and(?version(1),?version(2)) matches a package which has one version containing 1 and one version containing 2, ?any-version(?and(?version(1),?version(2))) restricts the ?and to act on the same version​.

?narrow(PATTERN​.​.​.)

Selects any version matching all PATTERNs, short for ?any-version(?and(PATTERN​.​.​.))​.

These patterns select specific packages​.

?architecture(WILDCARD), ~rWILDCARD

Selects packages matching the specified architecture, which may contain wildcards using any​.

?automatic, ~M

Selects packages that were installed automatically​.

?broken, ~b

Selects packages that have broken dependencies​.

?config-files, ~c

Selects packages that are not fully installed, but have solely residual configuration files left​.

?essential, ~E

Selects packages that have Essential: yes set in their control file​.

?exact-name(NAME)

Selects packages with the exact specified name​.

?garbage, ~g

Selects packages that can be removed automatically​.

?installed, ~i

Selects packages that are currently installed​. Since version 2​.5​.4, narrowing this pattern (see narrowing patterns above) makes it only match installed versions (see version patterns below)​.

?name(REGEX), ~nREGEX

Selects packages where the name matches the given regular expression​.

?obsolete, ~o

Selects packages that no longer exist in repositories​.

?phasing

Selects packages that will be kept back in upgrades due to phasing​.

?upgradable, ~U

Selects packages that can be upgraded (have a newer candidate)​.

?virtual, ~v

Selects all virtual packages; that is packages without a version​. These exist when they are referenced somewhere in the archive, for example because something depends on that name​.

These patterns select specific versions of a package​.

?archive(REGEX), ~AREGEX

Selects versions that come from the archive that matches the specified regular expression​. Archive, here, means the values after a= in apt-cache policy​.

?codename(REGEX)

Selects versions that come from the codename that matches the specified regular expression​. Codename, here, means the values after n= in apt-cache policy​.

?installed, ~i

Selects package versions that are currently installed​. Versions prior to 2​.5​.4 only matched at the package level, hence ?any-version(?installed?version(2​.0))matched even if 2​.0 was not installed, but another version was​.

?origin(REGEX), ~OREGEX

Selects versions that come from the origin that matches the specified regular expression​. Origin, here, means the values after o= in apt-cache policy​.

?section(REGEX), ~sREGEX

Selects versions where the section matches the specified regular expression​.

?source-package(REGEX), ~eREGEX

Selects versions where the source package name matches the specified regular expression​.

?source-version(REGEX)

Selects versions where the source package version matches the specified regular expression​.

?version(REGEX), ~VREGEX

Selects versions where the version string matches the specified regular expression​.

?priority(NAME), ~pNAME

Selects versions where the Priority string equals the given name​.

?security

Selects packages that are a security update or succeed a security update​.

These patterns match specific package versions that depend/conflict with some other packages​.

?depends(PATTERN), ~DPATTERN, ?predepends(PATTERN), ~DPreDepends:PATTERN, ?suggests(PATTERN), ~DSuggests:PATTERN, ?recommends(PATTERN), ~DRecommends:PATTERN, ?conflicts(PATTERN), ~DConflicts:PATTERN, ?replaces(PATTERN), ~DReplaces:PATTERN, ?obsoletes(PATTERN), ~DObsoletes:PATTERN, ?breaks(PATTERN), ~DBreaks:PATTERN, ?enhances(PATTERN), ~DEnhances:PATTERN

Selects versions depending/pre-depending/suggesting/recommending/conflicting/etc on/with/ packages matching PATTERN​.

?reverse-depType(PATTERN), ~RDepType:PATTERN

Opposite of ?depends and friends - selects all packages that have reverse-dependencies (versions) matching PATTERN​.

depType is one of the dependency types such as depends, so that we don't have to repeat the entire list from the first paragraph here​.

apt remove ?garbage

apt purge ?config-files

apt list '~i !~M (~slibs|~sperl|~spython)'

Patterns in apt are heavily inspired by patterns in aptitude, but with some tweaks:

• Syntax is uniform: If there is an opening parenthesis after a term, it is always assumed to be the beginning of an argument list​.

  In aptitude, a syntactic form "?foo(bar)" could mean "?and(?foo,bar)" if foo does not take an argument​. In APT, this will cause an error​.

• Not all patterns are supported​.
• Some additional patterns are available, for example, for finding gstreamer codecs​.
• Escaping terms with ~ is not supported​.
• A trailing comma is allowed in argument lists
• ?narrow accepts infinite arguments
• foo cannot be used as a shortform for ?name(foo), as this can cause typos to go unnoticed: Consider ?and(​.​.​.,~poptional): this requires the package to have required priority, but if you do not type the ~, it would require the package name to contain poptional​.
• Dependency types for ~D and related operators need to be specified in the canonical case​.

apt-get(8), apt(8)

APT bug page​^[1]​. If you wish to report a bug in APT, please see /usr/share/doc/debian/bug-reporting​.txt or the reportbug(1) command​.

APT was written by the APT team <apt@packages​.debian​.org>​.

Jason Gunthorpe

APT team

1.

APT bug page
https://bugs.debian.org/src:apt

apt(8), apt-cache(8), apt-get(8).