DESCRIPTION
apt-show-versions parses the dpkg status file and the APT lists for the installed and available package versions and distribution and shows upgrade options within the specific distribution of the selected package.This is really useful if you have a mixed stable/testing environment and want to list all packages which are from testing and can be upgraded in testing.
apt-show-versions uses caching for the status information of installed and available packages. If you run apt-show-versions as root the cache is updated as needed. If you run as non-root uses the newest available information, but can't update the cache. If you run as root with the option -i the cache is initialized or updated only.
SYNOPSIS
apt-show-versions [-h] [[-p] package name] [-a] [-b]OPTIONS
If you don't give any options the status of all installed packages is printed.- -p package, --package=package
- Print available and installed versions for specified package. You can also specify a package name without the option -p. If -p and a package name are missing, all installed packages are displayed.
- -r, --regex
- interpret package from option -p as a regex.
- -R, --regex-all
- like --regex, but also show matching packages which are not installed
- -u, --upgradeable
- Print only upgradeable packages
- -a, --allversions
- Print all available versions of the selected packages
- -b, --brief
- Print only package_name/distribution for upgradeable packages
- -v, --verbose
- Prints out messages about which package files are parsed.
- -V, --version
- Prints out version of apt-show-versions
- -i, --initialize
- Initialize or update package cache only (as root). Do this every time when the status of the installed or available packages has changed. Initialization is done automatically on installation of the package and via a cron.daily job.
- -stf file, --status-file=file
- Use file as the dpkg status file instead of /var/lib/dpkg/status
- -ld directory, --list-dir=directory
- Use directory as path to apt's list files instead of /var/state/apt/lists/ or /var/lib/apt/lists/
- -h, --help
- Prints out command-line help.
EXIT CODES
- 0
- No error
- 1
- Wrong usage
- 2
- apt-show-versions has been called with exactly one package and upgradeable option set, but package is uptodate. As no output has been requested, this case gets signaled using the exit code.
- 255
- Unspecified error
EXAMPLES
If you want to know for all your installed packages whether they are uptodate or upgradeable, use:
apt-show-versions
If you want to have a list of all upgradeable packages:
apt-show-versions -u
To get a list of all available versions of libc6:
apt-show-versions -a -p libc6
To get information about several packages:
apt-show-versions dpkg apt
apt-show-versions -r ^texlive
To upgrade all packages in testing:
apt-get install `apt-show-versions -u -b | grep testing`