apt-patterns - Syntax and semantics of apt search patterns¶
Description¶
Starting with version 2.0, APT
provides support for patterns, which
can be used to query the apt cache for packages.
Logic patterns¶
These patterns provide the basic means to combine other patterns into
more complex expressions, as well as ?true
and ?false
patterns.
?and(PATTERN, PATTERN, ...)
- Selects objects where all specified patterns match.
?false
- Selects nothing.
?not(PATTERN)
- Selects objects where PATTERN does not match.
?or(PATTERN, PATTERN, ...)
- Selects objects where at least one of the specified patterns match.
?true
- Selects all objects.
Package patterns¶
These patterns select specific packages.
?architecture(WILDCARD)
- Selects packages matching the specified architecture, which may contain wildcards using any.
?automatic
- Selects packages that were installed automatically.
?broken
- Selects packages that have broken dependencies.
?config-files
- Selects packages that are not fully installed, but have solely residual configuration files left.
?essential
- Selects packages that have Essential: yes set in their control file.
?exact-name(NAME)
- Selects packages with the exact specified name.
?garbage
- Selects packages that can be removed automatically.
?installed
- Selects packages that are currently installed.
?name(REGEX)
- Selects packages where the name matches the given regular expression.
?obsolete
- Selects packages that no longer exist in repositories.
?upgradable
- Selects packages that can be upgraded (have a newer candidate).
?virtual
- 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.
Examples¶
apt remove ?garbage
- Remove all packages that are automatically installed and no longer needed - same as apt autoremove
apt purge ?config-files
- Purge all packages that only have configuration files left
Migrating from aptitude¶
Patterns in apt are heavily inspired by patterns in aptitude, but with some tweaks:
Only long forms MDASH the ones starting with ? MDASH are supported
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
See Also¶
APT-GET, APT