6.3. The apt-cache
Command
The apt-cache
command can display much of the information stored in APT's internal database. This information is a sort of cache since it is gathered from the different sources listed in the sources.list
file. This happens during the apt update
operation.
The apt-cache
command can do keyword-based package searches with apt-cache search keyword
. It can also display the headers of the package's available versions with apt-cache show package
. This command provides the package's description, its dependencies, the name of its maintainer, etc. Note that apt search
, apt show
, aptitude search
, aptitude show
work in the same way.
Some features are more rarely used. For instance, apt-cache policy
displays the priorities of package sources as well as those of individual packages. Another example is apt-cache dumpavail
which displays the headers of all available versions of all packages. apt-cache pkgnames
displays the list of all the packages which appear at least once in the cache.