Manual: dpkg-query
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:
= (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
Description-md5 (internal, front-end related)
Enhances
Protected
Essential
Filename (internal, front-end related)
Homepage
Installed-Size
MD5sum (internal, front-end related)
Maintainer
Multi-Arch
Origin
Package
Pre-Depends
Priority
Provides
Recommends
Replaces
Revision (obsolete)
Section
SHA1 (internal, front-end related)
SHA256 (internal, front-end related)
SHA512 (internal, front-end related)
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). If none of the programs pointed by
DPKG_PAGER or PAGER are present, the following programs will be tried in order (since dpkg 1.22.12): the default
pager pager, then less(1), more(1), and finally cat(1).
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.
DPKG_NLS
If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native Language Support, also known as internationalization
(or i18n) support (since dpkg 1.22.7). The accepted values are: 0 and 1 (default).
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).
1.23.7 2026-03-31 dpkg-query(1)