How do I make a wildcard package search using apt-get?

Question

With yum it was simple: yum list *xxx* but this does not work with apt-get.

How can I do a search like this?

Also, how do I see what package provides a specific command?

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 02 '10 at 11:09

16

If you wish to search a specific string only in package names, you can do:

apt-cache search --names-only 'xxx'

This will return anything that contains 'xxx' in their package name.

apt-cache search --names-only 'php5$'

This will return any package with their name ending in php5.

Regular expressions can also be used without the --names-only. See apt-cache(8) man page.

answered Jul 02 '10 at 11:09

Weboide

1

aptitude search operates in the same way and you should really be using aptitude rather than apt-get these days. – WheresAlice Jul 02 '10 at 11:38
kaerast, you enlightened me! aptitude is the way. Thank. You should put this as an answer instead of a comment. "aptitude search" – sorin Jul 02 '10 at 12:50

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 02 '10 at 09:48

2

An alternative is "apt-cache search"

answered Jul 02 '10 at 09:48

lg.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 02 '10 at 09:36

First Question: use dselect or aptitude to see/search all available packagesm, their both curses frontends to apt-get and/or dpkg

Second Question: dpkg -S <COMMAND>

It would be wise to include the whole path in your dpkg search (e.g. /bin/ls, not just ls).

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 08 '10 at 23:13

0

Yet another alternative is axi-cache (in the apt-xapian-index package). It uses the xapian search engine to search through the apt archives.

answered Jul 08 '10 at 23:13

John Eikenberry

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 19 '17 at 16:46

Put the search query in a quotes and then use regex. For install to search whatever version of php-curl, I use;

sudo apt-cache search "php.*curl"

which returns;

php5-curl - CURL module for php5
php-http-request2 - Provides an easy way to perform HTTP requests

5 Answers5