Home / ubuntu / Questions / 18804
Accepted
theTuxRacer
Asked: 2010-12-26 01:02:58 +0800 CST

What do the various dpkg flags like 'ii' 'rc' mean?

  • 772

I frequently need to check which packages are installed, and I use the following command:

dpkg -l | grep foo

which gives the following output

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                       Version         Description
ii   foo                       <version>         <description>
  1. What does the ii mean?
  2. What other flags are there?
  3. How to read the flags? (because the explanation is quite complicated, IMO)

Thanks.

command-line dpkg

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Where to find this information in the system

    You can find this information out in the head of dpkg -l output, as it's just a formatting convention:

    dpkg -l | head -3

    Copied here for reference:

    Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold                                     
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)

    Description of each field

    As you can see from the first three lines:

    First letter -> desired package state ("selection state"):

    • u ... unknown
    • i ... install
    • r ... remove/deinstall
    • p ... purge (remove including config files)
    • h ... hold

    Second letter -> current package state:

    • n ... not-installed
    • i ... installed
    • c ... config-files (only the config files are installed)
    • U ... unpacked
    • F ... half-configured (configuration failed for some reason)
    • h ... half-installed (installation failed for some reason)
    • W ... triggers-awaited (package is waiting for a trigger from another package)
    • t ... triggers-pending (package has been triggered)

    Third letter -> error state (you normally shouldn't see a third letter, but a space, instead):

    • R ... reinst-required (package broken, reinstallation required)
    • 176

  2. The first letter displays what is the expected status of the package.
    The second letter displays what is the current status of the package.

    So for example:

    ii means 'It should be installed and it is installed' whereas
    rc means 'It's removed/uninstalled but it's configuration files are still there'

    • 38

  3. Because my rep is low, I cannot comment to answer the questions people have about where to get this info. After reviewing source code for dpkg and related programs' main.c code, I found what I was looking for.

    The info for reading the -l | --list output is in

    man dpkg-query

    and not in 

    man dpkg

    dpkg is merely acting as the front-end in these instances

    • 17

    1. It means that the package is desired to be installed and that the package is installed.

    2. See man dpkg-query

    3. Upper case letters shown in the alternatives after equals sign in the three first lines in the legend are the letters possibly shown shown as the first three characters in the first field, respectively, but not all of them in the same case i.e some of the letters are shown in lower case. The third character is space normally.

    • 1