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Accepted
Mario Palumbo
Asked: 2023-07-07 23:42:32 +0800 CST

apt-cache show <package> <field> - show single field of a package

  • 772

As for:

$ dpkg -f <deb-file> <field>

there is something that likewise:

$ apt-cache show <package> <field>

returns me a field of a package?

For example, assuming I have discord already installed and its .deb archive in the current directory, I run the commands:

$ dpkg -f ./discord.deb Version
$ apt-cache show discord Version

Outputs I'd like:

0.0.27
0.0.27

Actual output:

0.0.27
... # discord package unwanted long output
N: Unable to locate package Version

I'd like a solution that makes use of the apt-cache or dpkg command itself.
In the absence of such a solution, then I accept the usual parser.

How do I solve?

EDIT 1:

I only want to display the installed version of a package.

apt

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    To show only the installed version of a package: (and subsequently, this only works for installed packages)

    dpkg-query --showformat='${Version}' --show <package>

    To include a line break, just include a newline in the format string:

    dpkg-query --showformat='${Version}\n' --show <package>
    • 2

  2. This one-liner extracts the version of a package:

    apt-cache show packagename | awk '/^Version:/{print $2;}'
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