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David Nehme
Asked: 2009-12-24 07:32:51 +0800 CST

List of files installed from apt package

  • 772

How do I get a list of files that were or will-be installed when I apt-get a package? Conversely, can I find what package(s) caused a particular file to be installed?

linux

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Note: in the following commands, a command beginning with 'root#' means it needs to be run as root.

    To find which files were installed by a package, use dpkg -L:

    $ dpkg -L $package

    apt-file can tell you which files will be installed by a package before installing it:

    root# apt-get install apt-file
root# apt-file update
$ apt-file list $package

    Or if you have the package as a .deb file locally already, you can run dpkg on it:

    $ dpkg --contents $package.deb

    To find which package provides a file that is already on your system, use:

    $ dpkg -S /path/to/file

    To find which package provides a file that is not currently on your system, use apt-file again:

    $ apt-file search /path/to/file
    • 174 
  2. dpkg -S /path/to/file/in/question

    As far as I'm concerned, dpkg is the low-level tool that apt-get depends on.

    • 4

  3. Here is a function that should do it for you without the need to downloading the package to disk.

    apt_list () 
{ 
    local packages=("$@");
    for pkg in $(seq 0 1 $((${#packages[@]}-1)));
    do
        echo -e "\n#### ${packages[$pkg]} ####\n";
        apt-get download -o Dir::Cache::archives="./" --print-uris ${packages[$pkg]} | awk -F\' '{print $2}' | xargs -I '{}' curl -skL '{}' | dpkg-deb -c /dev/stdin | perl -ne 's,(:\d\d )[.]/,$1/,g;print';
        echo;
    done
}

    Then use apt_list <package name1> [package name 2]

    e.g. apt_list curl wget

    As for reverse checking files from packages apt-file would be the best bet.

    • 3

  4. If you have installed dlocate, you can use dlocate -L the same way as dpkg -L. It works exactly the same in this case, but has a number of other options.

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