locate file in package?

[Felipe Figueiredo]

On Wednesday 16 August 2006 15:11, D. R. Evans wrote:
> I have a simple question. Suppose that I want to install a package that
> will install a particular file, X. How do I determine which package will
> provide the file X?

Not really what you asked, but may be useful. If you want to know what 
*installed* package has file X you do:

$  dpkg -S X

(no sudo needed)

I don't think there's a built-in way to find filenames of non-installed 
packages. Apparently the cache simply doesn't store that information. Note 
that this was actually needed in RPM-based distributions because the 
dependencies (at least until rpm v3, maybe v4) were not smart enough to tell 
you what packages you needed. The information RPM gave you was "I need file 
X", and you had to somewhat to find a package with that file. We don't suffer 
from this problem.

Of course, if there *IS* a way to find, I would like to be proven wrong.

regards
FF