man > build-rdeps(1)

BUILD-RDEPS(1)                                                                        BUILD-RDEPS(1)

NAME
       build-rdeps - find packages that depend on a specific package to build (reverse build
       depends)

SYNOPSIS
       build-rdeps package

DESCRIPTION
       build-rdeps searches for all packages that build-depend on the specified package.

       The default behaviour is to just `grep` for the given dependency in the Build-Depends field
       of apt's Sources files.

       If the package dose-extra >= 4.0 is installed, then a more complete reverse build dependency
       computation is carried out. In particular, with that package installed, build-rdeps will find
       transitive reverse dependencies, respect architecture and build profile restrictions, take
       Provides relationships, Conflicts, Pre-Depends, Build-Depends-Arch and versioned dependencies
       into account and correctly resolve multiarch relationships for crossbuild reverse dependency
       resolution.  (This tends to be a slow process due to the complexity of the package
       interdependencies.)

OPTIONS
       -u, --update
           Run apt-get update before searching for build-depends.

       -s, --sudo
           Use sudo when running apt-get update. Has no effect if -u is omitted.

       --distribution
           Select another distribution, which is searched for build-depends.

       --only-main
           Ignore contrib, non-free and non-free-firmware.

       --only-devel
           Consider only development distributions (e.g. unstable, sid).

       --exclude-component
           Ignore the given component (e.g. main, contrib, non-free, non-free-firmware).

       --origin
           Restrict the search to only the specified origin (such as "Debian").

       -m, --print-maintainer
           Print the value of the maintainer field for each package.

       --host-arch
           Explicitly  set  the  host  architecture.  The default is the value of `dpkg-architecture
           -qDEB_HOST_ARCH`. This option only works if dose-extra >= 4.0 is installed.

       --build-arch
           Explicitly set the build architecture. The default is  the  value  of  `dpkg-architecture
           -qDEB_BUILD_ARCH`. This option only works if dose-extra >= 4.0 is installed.

       --no-arch-all, --no-arch-any
           Ignore Build-Depends-Indep or Build-Depends-Arch while looking for reverse dependencies.

       --old
           Force  the  old  simple  behaviour without dose-ceve support even if dose-extra >= 4.0 is
           installed.  (This tends to be faster.)

           Notice,  that  the  old  behaviour  only  finds  direct  dependencies,  ignores   virtual
           dependencies,   does   not  find  transitive  dependencies  and  does  not  take  version
           relationships, architecture restrictions, build profiles or multiarch relationships  into
           account.

       -q, --quiet
           Don't print meta information (header, counter). Making it easier to use in scripts.

       -d, --debug
           Run the debug mode

       --help
           Show the usage information.

       --version
           Show the version information.

REQUIREMENTS
       The  tool requires apt Sources files to be around for the checked components.  In the default
       case this means that in /var/lib/apt/lists files need to be around for  main,  contrib,  non-
       free and non-free-firmware.

       In practice this means one needs to add one deb-src line for each component, e.g.

       deb-src http://<mirror>/debian <dist> main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

       and run apt-get update afterwards or use the update option of this tool.

LICENSE
       This  code  is  copyright by Patrick Schoenfeld <schoenfeld AT debian.org>, all rights reserved.
       This program comes with ABSOLUTELEY NO WARRANTY.  You are  free  to  redistribute  this  code
       under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.

AUTHOR
       Patrick Schoenfeld <schoenfeld AT debian.org>

Debian Utilities                             2026-02-25                               BUILD-RDEPS(1)