man > dpkg-query(1)

dpkg-query(1)                                dpkg suite                                dpkg-query(1)

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
           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
           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.

   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).

1.22.6                                       2026-05-06                                dpkg-query(1)