Apt - Search Syntax

[Mirko Scurk]

email.listen at googlemail.com:
> Hi Gregory
> Am Sat, 12. August 2006 04:47 schrieb Gregory Pińero:
>> What is the command line equivalent of Synaptic Package Manager's
>> Search?
>>
>> For example I want to see if there is a matplotlib package and how to
>> spell it (proper cases and such)
>>
>> Bonus points for telling me how to find this information for myself in
>> the future.  I tried the following with no luck:
>> $ apropos search packages
>> $ man apt-get
>> Google search
> You can do this with apt-cache and using regular expressions.
> E.G. for your example matplot:
>
>  apt-cache search mat*
>
> As you can see I've used (*) but also more complex regular expressions
> will do
> the job:
>
>  apt-cache search [a-z]plot
>
> Both examples produce a lot of output so it needs some filtering.
> You can do this with grep, just pipe the output of apt-cache to grep:
>
>
>  apt-cache search [a-z]plot|grep mat
>
> fv - a tool for viewing and editing FITS format files
> kmatplot - A Gnuplot-like tool for plotting data sets in 2D or 3D
> amanda-client - Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver (Client)
> amanda-server - Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver (Server)
> calc - An advanced calculator and mathematical tool for Emacs.
> kmplot - mathematical function plotter for KDE
> python-matplotlib - python based plotting system in a style similar to
> Matlab
> python-matplotlib-data - python based plotting system (data package)
> python-matplotlib-doc - python based plotting system (documentation
> package)
> python2.4-matplotlib - python based plotting system (Python 2.4 version)
>
> And voila, there it is, python-matplotlib
>
>
> Another way would be using apt-file to search for a file if you don't know
> the
> packet name which holds this file. If you use apt-file for the first time
> you
> have to do an:
>  apt-file update
> to make it aware of all packages/files
>
> Now search for a filename and apt-file will give you it's packet name:
>  apt-file search matplot
>
> This will give a lot of output again so it's a good idea to pipe it to
> less
>
>  apt-file search matplot|less
>
> Scroll up and down the list using <Pg-up> and <Pg-down> or <Up> and <Down>
> arrow-keys. (If you have a look to the manpage of less you will see that
> it
> is one of the biggest manpages next to the bash manpage a GNU/Linux system
> has :)
> You will see that there is also a matplot command in the packet
> r-base-core:
>
>  apt-cache search r-base
>  r-base - GNU R statistical computing language and environment
>
>
>
> regards,
> thomas
>
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>

This is best possible way, but if you forget syntax or any of this
commands and you have internet connection you can try same through

http://packages.ubuntu.com


-- 
Mirko Scurk