apt-rdepends(8) performs recursive dependency listings similar to apt-cache

OPTIONS

-b, --build-depends
Show build dependencies instead of normal package dependencies.
-d, --dotty
dotty takes a list of packages on the command line and generates output suitable for use by springgraph. 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 which can produce a very large graph.

Blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts, yellow lines are suggests, orange lines are recommends, red lines are replaces, and black lines are depends.

Caution, dotty cannot graph larger sets of packages.

-p, --print-state
Shows the state of each dependency after each package version. See --state-follow and --state-show for why this is useful.
-r, --reverse
Shows the listings of each package that depends on a package. Furthermore, it will look at these dependent packages, and find their dependers.
-f, --follow=DEPENDS
A comma-separated list of DEPENDS types to follow recursively. By default, it only follows the Depends and PreDepends types.

The possible values for DEPENDS are: Depends, PreDepends, Suggests, Recommends, Conflicts, Replaces, and Obsoletes.

In --build-depends mode, the possible values are: Build-Depends, Build-Depends-Indep, Build-Conflicts, Build-Conflicts-Indep.

-s, --show=DEPENDS
A comma-separated list of DEPENDS types to show, when displaying a listing. By default, it only shows the Depends and PreDepends types.
--state-follow=STATES
--state-show=STATES
These two options are similar to --follow and --show. They both deal with the current state of a package. By default, the value of STATES is Unknown, NotInstalled, UnPacked, HalfConfigured, HalfInstalled, ConfigFiles, and Installed.

These options are useful, if you only want to only look at the dependencies between the Installed packages on your system. You can then call:

apt-rdepends --state-follow=Installed libfoo

Or if you want to only show the packages installed on your system:

apt-rdepends --state-follow=Installed --state-show=Installed libfoo
pkgs
The list of packages on which to discover dependencies.
-v, --vcg, --xvcg
This option takes a list of packages on the command line and generates output suitable for use by xvcg. 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 which can produce a very large graph.

Blue lines are pre-depends, green lines are conflicts, yellow lines are suggests, orange lines are recommends, red lines are replaces, and black lines are depends.

-o, --option=OPTION
Set an APT Configuration Option; This will set an arbitary configuration option. The syntax is -o Foo::Bar=bar.