dpkg-query

List packages matching given pattern. If no package-name-pattern is given, list all packages in /var/lib/dpkg/status, excluding the ones marked with state purge. Normal shell wildchars 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 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.

Just like the --list option this will list all packages matching the given pattern. However the output can be customized using the --showformat option. The default output format gives one line per matching package, each line having the name and installed version of the package, separated by a tab.

Report status of specified package. This just displays the entry in the installed package status database.

List files installed to your system from package-name. However, note that files created by package-specific installation-scripts are not listed.

Search for a filename from installed packages. All standard shell wildchars can be used in the pattern. This command will not list extra files created by maintainer scripts, nor will it list alternatives.

Display details about package-name, as found in /var/lib/dpkg/available.

Show the usage message and exit.

Show the version and exit.

Show the copyright licensing terms and exit. .

Change the location of the dpkg database. The default location is /var/lib/dpkg.

This option is used to specify the format of the output --show will produce. 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 recognised:

    Architecture
    Bugs
    Conffiles
    Config-Version
    Conflicts
    Breaks
    Depends
    Description
    Enhances
    Essential
    Filename
    Installed-Size
    MD5sum
    MSDOS-Filename
    Maintainer
    Origin
    Package
    Pre-Depends
    Priority
    Provides
    Recommends
    Replaces
    Revision
    Section
    Size
    Source
    Status
    Suggests
    Version

The default format string is ${Package}\t${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 -W -f='${Package} ${Version}\t${Maintainer}\n' dpkg

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This setting influences the output of the --list option by changing the width of its output. .