apt-patterns

APT-PATTERNS(7)                       APT                      APT-PATTERNS(7)

NAME
       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, ...), PATTERN PATTERN ...
           Selects objects where all specified patterns match.

       ?false, ~F
           Selects nothing.

       ?not(PATTERN), !PATTERN
           Selects objects where PATTERN does not match.

       ?or(PATTERN, PATTERN, ...), PATTERN | PATTERN | ...
           Selects objects where at least one of the specified patterns match.

       ?true, ~T
           Selects all objects.

       (PATTERN)
           Selects the same as PATTERN, can be used to work around precedence,
           for example, (~ramd64|~ri386)~nfoo

NARROWING PATTERNS
       ?all-versions(PATTERN)
           Selects packages where all versions match PATTERN. When matching
           versions instead, same as PATTERN.

       ?any-version(PATTERN)
           Selects any version where the pattern matches on the version.

           For example, while ?and(?version(1),?version(2)) matches a package
           which has one version containing 1 and one version containing 2,
           ?any-version(?and(?version(1),?version(2))) restricts the ?and to
           act on the same version.

       ?narrow(PATTERN...)
           Selects any version matching all PATTERNs, short for
           ?any-version(?and(PATTERN...)).

PACKAGE PATTERNS
       These patterns select specific packages.

       ?architecture(WILDCARD), ~rWILDCARD
           Selects packages matching the specified architecture, which may
           contain wildcards using any.

       ?automatic, ~M
           Selects packages that were installed automatically.

       ?broken, ~b
           Selects packages that have broken dependencies.

       ?config-files, ~c
           Selects packages that are not fully installed, but have solely
           residual configuration files left.

       ?essential, ~E
           Selects packages that have Essential: yes set in their control
           file.

       ?exact-name(NAME)
           Selects packages with the exact specified name.

       ?garbage, ~g
           Selects packages that can be removed automatically.

       ?installed, ~i
           Selects packages that are currently installed.

       ?name(REGEX), ~nREGEX
           Selects packages where the name matches the given regular
           expression.

       ?obsolete, ~o
           Selects packages that no longer exist in repositories.

       ?upgradable, ~U
           Selects packages that can be upgraded (have a newer candidate).

       ?virtual, ~v
           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.

VERSION PATTERNS
       These patterns select specific versions of a package.

       ?archive(REGEX), ~AREGEX
           Selects versions that come from the archive that matches the
           specified regular expression. Archive, here, means the values after
           a= in apt-cache policy.

       ?origin(REGEX), ~OREGEX
           Selects versions that come from the origin that matches the
           specified regular expression. Origin, here, means the values after
           o= in apt-cache policy.

       ?section(REGEX), ~sREGEX
           Selects versions where the section matches the specified regular
           expression.

       ?source-package(REGEX), ~eREGEX
           Selects versions where the source package name matches the
           specified regular expression.

       ?source-version(REGEX)
           Selects versions where the source package version matches the
           specified regular expression.

       ?version(REGEX), ~VREGEX
           Selects versions where the version string matches the specified
           regular expression.

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

       apt list '~i !~M (~slibs|~sperl|~spython)'
           List all manually-installed packages in sections matching libs,
           perl, or python.

MIGRATING FROM APTITUDE
       Patterns in apt are heavily inspired by patterns in aptitude, but with
       some tweaks:

       o   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.

       o   Not all patterns are supported.

       o   Some additional patterns are available, for example, for finding
           gstreamer codecs.

       o   Escaping terms with ~ is not supported.

       o   A trailing comma is allowed in argument lists

       o   ?narrow accepts infinite arguments

       o   foo cannot be used as a shortform for ?name(foo), as this can cause
           typos to go unnoticed: Consider ?and(...,~poptional): this requires
           the package to have required priority, but if you do not type the
           ~, it would require the package name to contain poptional.

       o   Grouping patterns with (...)  or writing ?or(A,B) as A|B are not
           supported. We do not believe that the use of | is that common, and
           the grouping is not necessary without it.

SEE ALSO
       apt-get(8), apt(8)

BUGS
       APT bug page[1]. If you wish to report a bug in APT, please see
       /usr/share/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt or the reportbug(1) command.

AUTHOR
       APT was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.

AUTHORS
       Jason Gunthorpe

       APT team

NOTES
        1. APT bug page
           http://bugs.debian.org/src:apt

APT 2.0.10                     04 February 2020                APT-PATTERNS(7)