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.\" Author: Jason Gunthorpe
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.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.78.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
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.\" Date: 09\ \&June\ \&2012
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.TH "APT\-CACHE" "8" "09\ \&June\ \&2012" "APT 1.0" "APT"
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.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
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.\" * Define some portability stuff
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.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
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.\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.\" http://bugs.debian.org/507673
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.\" http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2009-02/msg00013.html
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.\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
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.\" * set default formatting
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.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
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.\" disable hyphenation
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.\" disable justification (adjust text to left margin only)
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.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
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.\" * MAIN CONTENT STARTS HERE *
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.\" -----------------------------------------------------------------
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apt-cache \- query the APT cache
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.HP \w'\fBapt\-cache\fR\ 'u
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\fBapt\-cache\fR [\fB\-agipns\fR] [\fB\-o=\fR\fB\fIconfig_string\fR\fR] [\fB\-c=\fR\fB\fIconfig_file\fR\fR] {gencaches | showpkg\ \fIpkg\fR... | showsrc\ \fIpkg\fR... | stats | dump | dumpavail | unmet | search\ \fIregex\fR... | show\ \fIpkg\fR\ [{=\fIpkg_version_number\fR\ |\ /\fItarget_release\fR}]... | depends\ \fIpkg\fR\ [{=\fIpkg_version_number\fR\ |\ /\fItarget_release\fR}]... | rdepends\ \fIpkg\fR\ [{=\fIpkg_version_number\fR\ |\ /\fItarget_release\fR}]... | pkgnames\ [\fIprefix\fR] | dotty\ \fIpkg\fR\ [{=\fIpkg_version_number\fR\ |\ /\fItarget_release\fR}]... | xvcg\ \fIpkg\fR\ [{=\fIpkg_version_number\fR\ |\ /\fItarget_release\fR}]... | policy\ [\fIpkg\fR...] | madison\ \fIpkg\fR... | {\-v\ |\ \-\-version} | {\-h\ |\ \-\-help}}
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performs a variety of operations on APT\*(Aqs package cache\&.
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does not manipulate the state of the system but does provide operations to search and generate interesting output from the package metadata\&.
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option is given, one of the commands below must be present\&.
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creates APT\*(Aqs package cache\&. This is done implicitly by all commands needing this cache if it is missing or outdated\&.
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\fBshowpkg\fR \fB\fIpkg\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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displays information about the packages listed on the command line\&. Remaining arguments are package names\&. The available versions and reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed, as well as forward dependencies for each version\&. Forward (normal) dependencies are those packages upon which the package in question depends; reverse dependencies are those packages that depend upon the package in question\&. Thus, forward dependencies must be satisfied for a package, but reverse dependencies need not be\&. For instance,
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\fBapt\-cache showpkg libreadline2\fR
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would produce output similar to the following:
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Versions: 2\&.1\-12(/var/state/apt/lists/foo_Packages),
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libreadlineg2,libreadline2
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libreadline2\-altdev,libreadline2
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2\&.1\-12 \- libc5 (2 5\&.4\&.0\-0) ncurses3\&.0 (0 (null))
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Thus it may be seen that libreadline2, version 2\&.1\-12, depends on libc5 and ncurses3\&.0 which must be installed for libreadline2 to work\&. In turn, libreadlineg2 and libreadline2\-altdev depend on libreadline2\&. If libreadline2 is installed, libc5 and ncurses3\&.0 (and ldso) must also be installed; libreadlineg2 and libreadline2\-altdev do not have to be installed\&. For the specific meaning of the remainder of the output it is best to consult the apt source code\&.
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displays some statistics about the cache\&. No further arguments are expected\&. Statistics reported are:
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is the number of package names found in the cache\&.
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is the number of regular, ordinary package names; these are packages that bear a one\-to\-one correspondence between their names and the names used by other packages for them in dependencies\&. The majority of packages fall into this category\&.
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Pure virtual packages
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is the number of packages that exist only as a virtual package name; that is, packages only "provide" the virtual package name, and no package actually uses the name\&. For instance, "mail\-transport\-agent" in the Debian system is a pure virtual package; several packages provide "mail\-transport\-agent", but there is no package named "mail\-transport\-agent"\&.
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Single virtual packages
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is the number of packages with only one package providing a particular virtual package\&. For example, in the Debian system, "X11\-text\-viewer" is a virtual package, but only one package, xless, provides "X11\-text\-viewer"\&.
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Mixed virtual packages
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is the number of packages that either provide a particular virtual package or have the virtual package name as the package name\&. For instance, in the Debian system, "debconf" is both an actual package, and provided by the debconf\-tiny package\&.
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is the number of package names that were referenced in a dependency but were not provided by any package\&. Missing packages may be an evidence if a full distribution is not accessed, or if a package (real or virtual) has been dropped from the distribution\&. Usually they are referenced from Conflicts or Breaks statements\&.
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versions is the number of package versions found in the cache; this value is therefore at least equal to the number of total package names\&. If more than one distribution is being accessed (for instance, "stable" and "unstable"), this value can be considerably larger than the number of total package names\&.
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is the number of dependency relationships claimed by all of the packages in the cache\&.
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\fBshowsrc\fR \fB\fIpkg\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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displays all the source package records that match the given package names\&. All versions are shown, as well as all records that declare the name to be a binary package\&.
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shows a short listing of every package in the cache\&. It is primarily for debugging\&.
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prints out an available list to stdout\&. This is suitable for use with
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displays a summary of all unmet dependencies in the package cache\&.
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\fBshow\fR \fB\fIpkg\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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performs a function similar to
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\fBdpkg \-\-print\-avail\fR; it displays the package records for the named packages\&.
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\fBsearch\fR \fB\fIregex\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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performs a full text search on all available package lists for the POSIX regex pattern given, see
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\fBregex\fR(7)\&. It searches the package names and the descriptions for an occurrence of the regular expression and prints out the package name and the short description, including virtual package names\&. If
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is given then output identical to
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is produced for each matched package, and if
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\fB\-\-names\-only\fR
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is given then the long description is not searched, only the package name is\&.
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Separate arguments can be used to specify multiple search patterns that are and\*(Aqed together\&.
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\fBdepends\fR \fB\fIpkg\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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shows a listing of each dependency a package has and all the possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency\&.
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\fBrdepends\fR \fB\fIpkg\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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shows a listing of each reverse dependency a package has\&.
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\fBpkgnames\fR [\fIprefix\fR]
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This command prints the name of each package APT knows\&. The optional argument is a prefix match to filter the name list\&. The output is suitable for use in a shell tab complete function and the output is generated extremely quickly\&. This command is best used with the
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Note that a package which APT knows of is not necessarily available to download, installable or installed, e\&.g\&. virtual packages are also listed in the generated list\&.
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\fBdotty\fR \fB\fIpkg\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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takes a list of packages on the command line and generates output suitable for use by dotty from the
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\m[blue]\fBGraphViz\fR\m[]\&\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2
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package\&. The result will be a set of nodes and edges representing the relationships between the packages\&. By default the given packages will trace out all dependent packages; this can produce a very large graph\&. To limit the output to only the packages listed on the command line, set the
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APT::Cache::GivenOnly
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The resulting nodes will have several shapes; normal packages are boxes, pure virtual packages are triangles, mixed virtual packages are diamonds, missing packages are hexagons\&. Orange boxes mean recursion was stopped (leaf packages), blue lines are pre\-depends, green lines are conflicts\&.
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Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages\&.
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\fBxvcg\fR \fB\fIpkg\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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dotty, only for xvcg from the
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\m[blue]\fBVCG tool\fR\m[]\&\s-2\u[2]\d\s+2\&.
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\fBpolicy\fR [\fIpkg\fR\&...]
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is meant to help debug issues relating to the preferences file\&. With no arguments it will print out the priorities of each source\&. Otherwise it prints out detailed information about the priority selection of the named package\&.
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\fBmadison\fR \fB\fIpkg\fR\fR\fB\&...\fR
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command attempts to mimic the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian archive management tool,
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madison\&. It displays available versions of a package in a tabular format\&. Unlike the original
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madison, it can only display information for the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists (APT::Architecture)\&.
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All command line options may be set using the configuration file, the descriptions indicate the configuration option to set\&. For boolean options you can override the config file by using something like
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\fB\-f\-\fR,\fB\-\-no\-f\fR,
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or several other variations\&.
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\fB\-p\fR, \fB\-\-pkg\-cache\fR
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Select the file to store the package cache\&. The package cache is the primary cache used by all operations\&. Configuration Item:
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Dir::Cache::pkgcache\&.
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\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-src\-cache\fR
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Select the file to store the source cache\&. The source is used only by
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and it stores a parsed version of the package information from remote sources\&. When building the package cache the source cache is used to avoid reparsing all of the package files\&. Configuration Item:
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Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache\&.
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\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR
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Quiet; produces output suitable for logging, omitting progress indicators\&. More q\*(Aqs will produce more quietness up to a maximum of 2\&. You can also use
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to set the quietness level, overriding the configuration file\&. Configuration Item:
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\fB\-i\fR, \fB\-\-important\fR
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Print only important dependencies; for use with
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depends\&. Causes only Depends and Pre\-Depends relations to be printed\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::Important\&.
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\fB\-\-no\-pre\-depends\fR, \fB\-\-no\-depends\fR, \fB\-\-no\-recommends\fR, \fB\-\-no\-suggests\fR, \fB\-\-no\-conflicts\fR, \fB\-\-no\-breaks\fR, \fB\-\-no\-replaces\fR, \fB\-\-no\-enhances\fR
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print all dependencies\&. This can be tweaked with these flags which will omit the specified dependency type\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::Show\fIDependencyType\fR
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APT::Cache::ShowRecommends\&.
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\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-full\fR
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Print full package records when searching\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::ShowFull\&.
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\fB\-a\fR, \fB\-\-all\-versions\fR
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Print full records for all available versions\&. This is the default; to turn it off, use
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\fB\-\-no\-all\-versions\fR\&. If
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\fB\-\-no\-all\-versions\fR
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is specified, only the candidate version will be displayed (the one which would be selected for installation)\&. This option is only applicable to the
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command\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::AllVersions\&.
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\fB\-g\fR, \fB\-\-generate\fR
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Perform automatic package cache regeneration, rather than use the cache as it is\&. This is the default; to turn it off, use
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\fB\-\-no\-generate\fR\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::Generate\&.
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\fB\-\-names\-only\fR, \fB\-n\fR
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Only search on the package names, not the long descriptions\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::NamesOnly\&.
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print all names, including virtual packages and missing dependencies\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::AllNames\&.
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recursive so that all packages mentioned are printed once\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::RecurseDepends\&.
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to packages which are currently installed\&. Configuration Item:
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APT::Cache::Installed\&.
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\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
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Show a short usage summary\&.
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\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
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Show the program version\&.
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\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-config\-file\fR
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Configuration File; Specify a configuration file to use\&. The program will read the default configuration file and then this configuration file\&. If configuration settings need to be set before the default configuration files are parsed specify a file with the
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environment variable\&. See
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for syntax information\&.
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\fB\-o\fR, \fB\-\-option\fR
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Set a Configuration Option; This will set an arbitrary configuration option\&. The syntax is
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\fB\-o Foo::Bar=bar\fR\&.
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can be used multiple times to set different options\&.
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/etc/apt/sources\&.list
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Locations to fetch packages from\&. Configuration Item:
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Dir::Etc::SourceList\&.
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/etc/apt/sources\&.list\&.d/
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File fragments for locations to fetch packages from\&. Configuration Item:
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Dir::Etc::SourceParts\&.
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Storage area for state information for each package resource specified in
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\fBsources.list\fR(5)
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/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/
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Storage area for state information in transit\&. Configuration Item:
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will be implicitly appended)
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\fBsources.list\fR(5),
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returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error\&.
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\m[blue]\fBAPT bug page\fR\m[]\&\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2\&. If you wish to report a bug in APT, please see
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/usr/share/doc/debian/bug\-reporting\&.txt
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\fBJason Gunthorpe\fR
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\%http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/
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\%http://rw4.cs.uni-sb.de/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html
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\%http://bugs.debian.org/src:apt