PKG_INFO(1) General Commands Manual PKG_INFO(1)

pkg_info — a utility for displaying information on software packages

pkg_info [-BbcDdFfhIikLmNnpqRrSsVvX] [-E pkg-name] [-e pkg-name] [-K pkg_dbdir] [-l prefix] pkg-name ...

pkg_info [-a | -u] [flags]

pkg_info [-Q variable] pkg-name ...

The pkg_info command is used to dump out information for packages, which may be either packed up in files or already installed on the system with the pkg_create(1) command.

The pkg-name may be the name of an installed package (with or without version), a pattern matching several installed packages (see the PACKAGE WILDCARDS section for a description of possible patterns), the pathname to a binary package, a filename belonging to an installed package (with -F), or a URL to an FTP-available package.

The following command line options are available:

Show information for all currently installed packages. See also -u. When neither -a nor -u is given, the former is assumed.
Show some of the important definitions used when building the binary package (the “Build information”) for each package. Additionally, any installation information variables (lowercase) can be queried, too. In particular, automatic tells if a package was installed automatically as a dependency of another package.
Show the NetBSD RCS Id strings from the files used in the construction of the binary package (the “Build version”) for each package. These files are the package Makefile, any patch files, any checksum files, and the packing list file.
Show the one-line comment field for each package.
Show the install-message file (if any) for each package.
Show the long-description field for each package.
pkg-name
This option allows you to test for the existence of a given package. If a package identified by pkg-name is currently installed, return code is 0, otherwise 1. The name of the best matching package found installed is printed to stdout unless turned off using the -q option. pkg-name can contain wildcards (see the PACKAGE WILDCARDS section below).
pkg-name
This option allows you to test for the existence of a given package. If a package identified by pkg-name is currently installed, return code is 0, otherwise 1. The names of any package(s) found installed are printed to stdout unless turned off using the -q option. pkg-name can contain wildcards (see the PACKAGE WILDCARDS section below).
Interpret any pkg-name given as filename, and query information on the package that file belongs to. This can be used to query information on a per-file basis. See the TECHNICAL DETAILS section below for more information.
Show the packing list instructions for each package.
Print usage message and exit.
Show the index entry for each package. This option is assumed when no arguments or relevant flags are specified.
Show the install script (if any) for each package.
pkg_dbdir
Override the value of the PKG_DBDIR configuration option with the value pkg_dbdir.
Show the de-install script (if any) for each package.
Show the files within each package. This is different from just viewing the packing list, since full pathnames for everything are generated. Files that were created dynamically during installation of the package are not listed.
prefix
Prefix each information category header (see -q) shown with prefix. This is primarily of use to front-end programs that want to request a lot of different information fields at once for a package, but don't necessary want the output intermingled in such a way that they can't organize it. This lets you add a special token to the start of each field.
Show the mtree file (if any) for each package.
Show which packages each package was built with (exact dependencies), if any.
Show which packages each package needs (depends upon), if any.
Show the installation prefix for each package.
variable
Show the definition of variable from the build information for each package. An empty string is returned if no such variable definition is found for the package(s).
Be “quiet” in emitting report headers and such, just dump the raw info (basically, assume a non-human reading).
For each package, show the packages that require it.
For each package, show the packages that require it. Continue recursively to show all dependents.
Show the size of this package and all the packages it requires, in bytes.
Show the size of this package in bytes. The size is calculated by adding up the size of each file of the package.
Show information for all user-installed packages: automatically installed packages (as dependencies of other packages) are not displayed. See also -a.
Print version number and exit.
Turn on verbose output.
Print summary information for each package. The summary format is described in pkg_summary(5). Its primary use is to contain all information about the contents of a (remote) binary package repository needed by package managing software.

Package info is either extracted from package files named on the command line, or from already installed package information in <PKG_DBDIR>/<pkg-name>.

When the -F option is used, a filename can be given instead of a package name to query information on the (installed) package that file belongs to. The filename is resolved to a package name using the package database. The filename must be absolute, as in the output of

pkg_info -aF
. For example,
pkg_info -Fe /path/to/file
can be used to display the package the given file belongs to, and
pkg_info -LF /path/to/file
can be used to display all files belonging to the package the given file belongs to.

In the places where a package name/version is expected, e.g., for the -e option, several forms can be used. Either use a package name with or without version, or specify a package wildcard that gets matched against all installed packages.

Package wildcards use fnmatch(3). In addition, csh(1) style {,} alternates have been implemented. Package version numbers can also be matched in a relational manner using the “≥”, “≤”, “>”, and “<” operators. For example,

pkg_info -e 'name≥1.3'
will match versions 1.3 and later of the “name” package. (Make sure to use shell quoting.) Additionally, ranges can be defined, by giving both a lower bound (with “>” or “≥”) as well as an upper bound (with “<” or “≤”). The lower bound has to come first. For example,
pkg_info -e 'name≥1.3<2.0'
will match versions 1.3 (inclusive) to 2.0 (exclusive) of package “name”.

The collating sequence of the various package version numbers is unusual, but strives to be consistent. The magic string “alpha” equates to “alpha version”, and sorts before a beta version. The magic string “beta” equates to “beta version”, and sorts before a release candidate. The magic string “rc” equates to “release candidate”, and sorts before a release. The magic string “pre”, short for “pre-release”, is a synonym for “rc”. For example, “name-1.3alpha2” will sort before “name-1.3beta1”, and they both sort before “name-1.3rc1”. Similarly, “name-1.3rc3” will sort before “name-1.3”, and after “name-1.2.9”. The magic string “pl” equates to “patch level”, and has the same value as a dot (‘.’) in the dewey-decimal ordering schemes, as does the underscore (‘_’). Additionally, alphabetic characters sort in the same place as their numeric counterparts, so that “name-1.2e” has the same sorting value as “name-1.2.5”.

See pkg_install.conf(5) for options, that can also be specified using the environment.

pkg_add(1), pkg_admin(1), pkg_create(1), pkg_delete(1), pkg_install.conf(5) pkgsrc(7)

Jordan Hubbard
most of the work
John Kohl
refined it for NetBSD
Hubert Feyrer
NetBSD wildcard dependency processing, pkgdb, depends displaying, pkg size display, and more.
January 11, 2015 Mac OS X 14