How can I get recursively list an apt package’s dependencies with their installed versions?
I would like to list the recursive dependencies of a given package, with the currently installed version of each dependency. I’d also like one entry on each line, so it’s sortable and diffable. Basically, given, say, tcpdump , I would like the output to look like:
libtext-wrapi18n-perl: 0.06-7 perl-base: 5.14.2-21+deb7u2 . etc. The exact format of each line doesn’t matter so much, just the ability to diff and sort. The question List (recursive) dependencies of the installed packages in APT is similar, but doesn’t give package versions. Using debfoster -d looks promising, but its output does not lend itself to further processing.
I’m unclear what you want. I don’t see any direct connection between tcpdump and libtext-wrapi18n-perl and perl-base . You write «recursively list a package’s dependencies». Does that mean you want all the packages that «tcpdump» has a runtime dependency on? The immediate dependencies are given for example by apt-cache show tcpdump , and are Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7), libpcap0.8 (>= 1.2.1), libssl1.0.0 (>= 1.0.0) . Or do you want the reverse dependencies of tcpdump , i.e. the packages that have a runtime dependency on tcpdump ? This is given by apt-cache rdepends tcpdump .
You could also check out apt-rdepends tcpdump and apt-rdepends -r tcpdump . apt-cache rdepends seems kinda flakey; you might prefer apt-rdepends .
@FaheemMitha I want all packages that tcpdump depends upon, and all of their dependencies, and all of their dependencies, etc.
@FaheemMitha FYI apt-cache rdepends shows reverse dependencies (aka. dependants). Very confusingly, it has a similar name to apt-rdepends , which shows recursive dependencies.
apt-rdepends show recursive dependencies. apt-rdepends -r shows reverse recursive dependencies. Doesn’t. apt-rdepends work for you then?
3 Answers 3
Both answers already provided have their pros and cons.
Starting with debfoster gives a list of packages which is simple to parse, so the following gives the requested result:
apt-cache policy $(debfoster -q -d tcpdump|tail -n +2)|awk '/^[^ ]/ < package=$0 >/ Installed/ < print package " " $2 >' using tail to skip the first line and awk to process the result in a single operation. (Using a command substitution avoids the need to process newlines.) Starting with debfoster means we can only do this with a package which is already installed, so we can then use dpkg to provide more information:
dpkg -l $(debfoster -q -d tcpdump|tail -n +2) Starting with apt-rdepends gives a list of packages which is a little harder to process, with duplicates; but it has the advantage of being able to process packages which aren’t yet installed:
apt-cache policy $(apt-rdepends -p tcpdump 2>| /dev/null|awk '/Depends/ '|sort -u)|awk '/^[^ ]/ < package=$0 >/ Installed/ < print package " " $2 >' This can also be used with dpkg -l :
dpkg -l $(apt-rdepends -p tcpdump 2>| /dev/null|awk '/Depends/ '|sort -u) but this requires that dpkg know about all the packages involved, which may not be the case if the package being processed isn’t installed.
debfoster includes Recommends by default; this can be disabled using —option UseRecommends=no :
debfoster -q --option UseRecommends=no -d tcpdump apt-rdepends doesn’t include Recommends by default; this can be enabled using -f Depends,PreDepends,Recommends -s Depends,PreDepends,Recommends :
apt-rdepends -f Depends,PreDepends,Recommends -s Depends,PreDepends,Recommends -p tcpdump although it doesn’t give all the dependencies debfoster finds in that case. (For example debfoster finds that tcpdump depends on apt via libssl1.0.0 , debconf and apt-utils , but apt-rdepends doesn’t.)
Nice, I didn’t know about that tail option! In my situation, I only care about installed packages, but the solutions for not-installed packages might prove useful too.
The following set of commands seems to do it:
debfoster -q -d tcpdump | sed -n '1!p' | tr -s ' ' | xargs | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs -I _ -d ' ' -n 1 sh -c "echo _: \"\$(apt-cache policy _ | grep ' Installed: ' | sed -e 's/ Installed: //')\"" - debfoster to print the (recursive) dependencies
- sed to remove the first line
- tr to collapse extra spaces
- xargs to trim leading and trailing space
- tr to remove the trailing newline
- xargs to:
- echo the package name
- use apt-cache policy to find the installed version (along with grep and sed to extract the version itself.
apt-utils: 1.0.1ubuntu2.6 debconf: 1.5.51ubuntu2 debconf-i18n: 1.5.51ubuntu2 dpkg: 1.17.5ubuntu5.3 gcc-4.8-base: 4.8.2-19ubuntu1 [. etc. ]If anyone can see a way to simplify this, let me know.
The poster writes (in a comment):
I want all packages that tcpdump depends upon, and all of their dependencies, and all of their dependencies, etc.
apt-rdepends does this. NOTE: the «r» in «rdepends» means «recursive».
apt-rdepends -p tcpdump Reading package lists. Done Building dependency tree Reading state information. Done tcpdump Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7) [Installed] Depends: libpcap0.8 (>= 1.0.0) [Installed] Depends: libssl0.9.8 (>= 0.9.8m-1) [NotInstalled] libc6 Depends: libc-bin (= 2.11.3-4) [Installed] Depends: libgcc1 [Installed] libc-bin libgcc1 Depends: gcc-4.4-base (= 4.4.5-8) [NotInstalled] Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5) [Installed] gcc-4.4-base libpcap0.8 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7) [Installed] libssl0.9.8 Depends: debconf (>= 0.5) [Installed] Depends: debconf-2.0 [NotInstalled] Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7) [Installed] Depends: zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4) [Installed] debconf Depends: debconf-english [NotInstalled] Depends: debconf-i18n [Installed] PreDepends: perl-base (>= 5.6.1-4) [Installed] debconf-english Depends: debconf [Installed] debconf-i18n Depends: debconf [Installed] Depends: liblocale-gettext-perl [Installed] Depends: libtext-charwidth-perl [Installed] Depends: libtext-iconv-perl [Installed] Depends: libtext-wrapi18n-perl [Installed] liblocale-gettext-perl Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5) [Installed] PreDepends: perl-base (>= 5.10.0-25) [Installed] PreDepends: perlapi-5.10.0 [NotInstalled] perl-base PreDepends: dpkg (>= 1.14.20) [Installed] PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.4) [Installed] dpkg PreDepends: coreutils (>= 5.93-1) [Installed] PreDepends: libbz2-1.0 [Installed] PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.6) [Installed] PreDepends: libselinux1 (>= 1.32) [Installed] PreDepends: xz-utils [Installed] PreDepends: zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4) [Installed] coreutils PreDepends: libacl1 (>= 2.2.11-1) [Installed] PreDepends: libattr1 (>= 2.4.41-1) [Installed] PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.6) [Installed] PreDepends: libselinux1 (>= 1.32) [Installed] libacl1 Depends: libattr1 (>= 2.4.41-1) [Installed] Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5) [Installed] libattr1 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5) [Installed] libselinux1 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.4) [Installed] libbz2-1.0 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3) [Installed] xz-utils Depends: libc6 (>= 2.6) [Installed] Depends: liblzma2 (>= 5.0.0) [NotInstalled] liblzma2 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5) [Installed] zlib1g Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5) [Installed] perlapi-5.10.0 libtext-charwidth-perl Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5) [Installed] Depends: perl-base (>= 5.10.0-13) [Installed] Depends: perlapi-5.10.0 [NotInstalled] libtext-iconv-perl Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5) [Installed] Depends: perl-base (>= 5.10.0-13) [Installed] Depends: perlapi-5.10.0 [NotInstalled] libtext-wrapi18n-perl Depends: libtext-charwidth-perl [Installed] debconf-2.0apt/aptitude — How can I display a package dependency tree for a collection of packages, taken as a whole?
I had a problem with my apt packages which I resolved. The problem and resolution are discussed here: Aptitude says that lots of my packages need to be removed . However, in discussing this, I realized that I have an ancillary question about apt which I’d like to find the answer to, which is why I’m posting this current question. I did something accidentally which caused more than 1,400 «auto» packages to become orphaned, and they were were listed as «no longer in use» and flagged for removal in aptitude . It seems now that the reason for this is because they all were ultimately dependent on some base-level package or meta-package that was incorrectly deleted. If that is the case, is there a utility or procedure I can use to take a list of apt packages as input, and produce a dependency tree for this entire set of packages, taken as a whole? If so, I would probably have been able to identify the package at the top of this tree that I accidentally deleted, and I then could have reinstalled this package in order to fix my problem. In other words, I’m looking for some procedure or utility which would take a list of packages as input and produce something similar to this as output .
top-package |--package-000 |-+package-001 | |--package-002 |-+package-003 | |--package-004 | |--package-005 | |-+package-006 | | |--package-007 | |--package-008 |--package-009 . etc. .. where package-NNN are my list of input packages plus any other packages they happen to be dependencies for, and top-package is the root of the dependency tree. If my hypothesis is correct that my problem was due to a high-level meta-package having been accidentally deleted, then top-package would identify that deleted package. I could then reinstall top-package and presumably fix my problem. To be clear, I want to repeat that I already solved my specific problem in a different way (see the referenced discussion). I’m asking this here not to solve that particular problem, but rather, because I would like to have some sort of dependency-tree-listing tool like I described above, in order to help diagnose and fix other similar problems which might occur in the future. Thank you very much for any references or suggestions.