Section: User Commands (1)Updated: January 05, 2010Local indexUp
NAME
ept-cache - High-level tool to access package information
SYNOPSIS
ept-cache [options] <command> [options and arguments]
DESCRIPTION
ept-cache is a high-level tool to access package information.
It can currently search and display data from four sources: the APT database,
the Debtags tag information, Popcon package scores and a fast Xapian-based full
text index on package descriptions.
If the Xapian data source is enabled, output results are by default sorted by
relevance order, with the best results first. If you are seeing strange
results in the output, rerun the search with the --full switch and look at
the Search-Score headers.
COMMANDS
ept-cache accepts a non-switch argument, that indicates what is the operation that should be performed:
help [command]
With no arguments, print a summary of available commands. If given a command name as argument, print detailed informations about that command.
show <pkg>
show informations about a package, like apt-cache show does, but adds new fields with all available extra metadata
search [keywords]
output the names and descriptions of the packages that match the given tag expression
dumpavail [keywords]
output the full package database, with all extra metadata
reindex
updates the various indexes managed by libept (requires root).
It needs to be run as root
info
show information about the data providers.
related [pkgnames]
Show packages similar to the given ones. Package similarity is computed by how many common elements there are in their descriptions and their tags
OPTIONS
This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`-').
Every one of the commands listed above has its own set of options. To keep this manpage readable, all the options are presented together. Please refer to "ept-cache help command" to see which options are accepted by a given command.
Help options:
-h, -?, --help
print commandline help and exit.
--version
print the program version and exit.
--manpage=[hooks]
output the ept-cache manpage and exit.
Other options:
-v, --verbose
enable verbose output.
--debug
enable debugging output (including verbose output).
Options for command help Options for command show
Output options:
--names
output only the names of the packages.
-q, --quiet
do not write anything to standard output.
--short
output the names of the packages, plus a short description.
--full
output the full record of package data.
--tagcoll
tagcoll-style output.
--limit=count
maximum number of packages to show.
--cutoff=percent
do not show results that are this percent worse than the top result.
-s method, --sort=method
sort order (use 'list' for a list of supported options).
Options for command search
Output options:
--names
output only the names of the packages.
-q, --quiet
do not write anything to standard output.
--short
output the names of the packages, plus a short description.
--full
output the full record of package data.
--tagcoll
tagcoll-style output.
--limit=count
maximum number of packages to show.
--cutoff=percent
do not show results that are this percent worse than the top result.
-s method, --sort=method
sort order (use 'list' for a list of supported options).
Filter options:
--ftags=tagexpr
only print packages matching this tag expression.
-t name, --type=name
only print packages of a given type (use 'list' for a list of supported types).
Options for command dumpavail
Output options:
--names
output only the names of the packages.
-q, --quiet
do not write anything to standard output.
--short
output the names of the packages, plus a short description.
--full
output the full record of package data.
--tagcoll
tagcoll-style output.
--limit=count
maximum number of packages to show.
--cutoff=percent
do not show results that are this percent worse than the top result.
-s method, --sort=method
sort order (use 'list' for a list of supported options).
Filter options:
--ftags=tagexpr
only print packages matching this tag expression.
-t name, --type=name
only print packages of a given type (use 'list' for a list of supported types).
Options for command reindex
Other options:
-q, --quiet
do not write anything to standard output.
Options for command info Options for command related
Output options:
--names
output only the names of the packages.
-q, --quiet
do not write anything to standard output.
--short
output the names of the packages, plus a short description.
--full
output the full record of package data.
--tagcoll
tagcoll-style output.
--limit=count
maximum number of packages to show.
--cutoff=percent
do not show results that are this percent worse than the top result.
-s method, --sort=method
sort order (use 'list' for a list of supported options).
Filter options:
--ftags=tagexpr
only print packages matching this tag expression.
-t name, --type=name
only print packages of a given type (use 'list' for a list of supported types).
EXAMPLES
# Output all the available information about apt
ept-cache show apt
# Keyword search
ept-cache search image editor
# Keyword search with simple tag filter
ept-cache search -t gui image editor
# More results
ept-cache search -t gui --limit=300 image editor
# Output full package records for grep-dctrl.
# The records will contain improved Tag: headers, Popcon information and
# any other information that is available through libept.
ept-cache dumpavail -t gui image editor
# Show packages similar to mutt
ept-cache related mutt
# Show packages somewhat inbetween mutt and iceweasel
ept-cache related mutt iceweasel
# Show what data sources are available
ept-cache info
# Build or update the indexes (needs root)
ept-cache reindex