---
name: "dlocate"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "dlocate"
version: "1.17"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/dlocate"
---

# dlocate(1)

program to view debian package information

## NAME

dlocate - program to view debian package information

## SYNOPSIS

**dlocate** \[*option*...\] \[*command*\]

## DESCRIPTION

**dlocate** is a fast alternative to dpkg for queries like `"dpkg -L"` and `"dpkg -S"`.

## COMMANDS

- *pattern*...

  List all records where either the package name or the filename matches *pattern*.

  Note that dlocate uses GNU grep, so normal regexp metacharacters need to be taken into account or avoided by using the **-F** (Fixed String) grep option.

  For example, to search for `"/usr/bin/["`, you might try:

  ```
    dlocate '/usr/bin/\['
  ```

  or

  ```
    dlocate -F '/usr/bin/['
  ```

- **-S** *filename*...

  List all records where only the filename matches the *filename* pattern.

  Note that dlocate uses GNU grep, so normal regexp metacharacters need to be taken into account. Fixed String searches are incompatible with **-S**.

  For example, to search for `"/usr/bin/["`, you need to type:

  ```
    dlocate  '/usr/bin/\['
  ```

- **-l** *package*...

  Regexp-enhanced emulation of `"dpkg -l"`. Shows all packages which match *package*.

  Internally this uses grep on a file containing the reformatted output of `"dpkg -l"` (four fields separated by tabs; status, package-name, installed version, short description) so it will return packages whose version or short description matches, too.

  Various flavours of regular expression are supported. For example, Extended Regexp:

  ```
    dlocate -l '^..[[:space:]]libc6'
  ```

  or Perl Regexp:

  ```
    dlocate -P -l '^..\slibc6'
  ```

  Both of these will list all the packages whose names start with `"libc6"`.

  Note that because of the difference between regular expressions and dpkg's shell-style pattern matching, the output from `"dlocate -l"` is occasionally different to the output from `"dpkg -l"`.

  This is not a bug, regular expressions are far more flexible than shell pattern matching. This is the way dlocate is supposed to run, but it may require some knowledge of regular expressions to get the output you want.

- **-k**

  List package names of installed kernels and all related packages.

- **-K**

  Detailed list of installed kernels and all related packages.

- **-L** *package*...

  List all files in *package*.

  The output order is preserved from the one used by **dpkg-query**, which preserves the order from the **.deb** archive, where symlinks are provided at the end to guarantee they point to already unpacked entries in the filesystem.

- **-s** *package*...

  Print status of *package*.

- **--ls** *package*...

  `"ls -ldF"` of all files in *package*.

- **--lsconf** *package*...

  `"ls -ldF"` of conffiles in *package*.

- **--conf** *package*...

  List conffiles in *package*.

- **--du** *package*...

  `"du -sck"` of all files in *package*.

- **--md5sum** *package*...

  List md5sums (if any) of *package*.

- **--md5check** *package*...

  Check md5sums (if any) of *package*.

- **--man** *package*...

  List man pages (if any) in *package*.

- **--lsman** *package*...

  List full path/filenames of man pages (if any) in *package*.

- **--lsbin** *package*...

  List full path/filenames of executable files (if any) in *package*.

- **--lsdir** *package*...

  List only the directories in *package*.

## OPTIONS

- **--filename-only**

  Only output file names when searching for files.

- **--package-only**

  Only output package names when searching for files.

- **-w**, **--word-regexp**

  Select only those lines containing matches that form whole words. The test is that the matching substring must either be at the beginning of the line, or preceded by a non-word constituent character. Similarly, it must be either at the end of the line or followed by a non-word constituent character. Word-constituent characters are letters, digits, and the underscore.

- **-i**, **--ignore-case**

  Ignore case distinctions in the *pattern*.

- **-E**, **--extended-regexp**

  Interpret *pattern* as an extended regular expression. This is the default.

- **-F**, **--fixed-strings**

  Interpret *pattern* as a list of fixed strings, separated by newlines, any of which is to be matched.

- **-G**, **--basic-regexp**

  Interpret *pattern* as a basic regular expression.

- **-P**, **--perl-regexp**

  Interpret *pattern* as a Perl regular expression. This is considered to be highly experimental within GNU grep and may warn of unimplemented features.

- **-h**, **--help**

  Display help message and exit.

- **-V**, **--version**

  Display dlocate's version number and exit.

- **-v**, **--verbose**, **--debug**

  Produce verbose debugging output.

- **-c**, **--columns**\[**=***columns*\]

  Set *columns* width to override the **dlocate** default of using the entire terminal line width. Any value for *columns* less than 80 will be increased to 80.

- **-C**, **--color**

  Colorize **-l** or **-s** output (requires supercat to be installed).

## FILES

- */etc/default/dlocate*

  Configuration file with default options. Currently the only option is to enable/disable gzip compression of */var/lib/dlocate/dlocatedb*.

- */var/lib/dlocate/dlocatedb*

  Plain text listing of all files belonging to all packages (optionally compressed).

- */var/lib/dlocate/dpkg-list*

  Listing of all packages known to dpkg.

  See [**update-dlocatedb**(8)](/update-dlocatedb/8.md) for details.

## EXAMPLES

To find which package `"/usr/bin/["` belongs to:

```
  dlocate '/usr/bin/\['
```

To view all man pages contained within the dpkg package:

```
  man $(dlocate -man dpkg)
```

To purge kernel version 2.6.28.7 and all related module packages:

```
  dlocate -k | grep -- -2.6.28.7 | xargs apt-get purge
```

To check the md5sums of the dlocate package:

```
  dlocate --md5check dlocate
```

To use dpkg-repack to make a backup copy of all installed mythtv packages just before upgrading them:

```
  dlocate -l mythtv | awk '/^.i/ {print $2}' | xargs dpkg-repack
  # dlocate -l mythtv | awk '/^.i/ {print $2}' | xargs dpkg-repack
  dpkg-deb: building package `libmythtv-perl' in `./libmythtv-perl_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv' in `./mythtv_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv-backend' in `./mythtv-backend_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv-common' in `./mythtv-common_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv-database' in `./mythtv-database_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv-doc' in `./mythtv-doc_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv-frontend' in `./mythtv-frontend_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv-perl' in `./mythtv-perl_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv-status' in `./mythtv-status_0.9.0-5_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtv-themes' in `./mythtv-themes_0.21-0.0_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `mythtvfs' in `./mythtvfs_0.5.2-2_amd64.deb'.
  dpkg-deb: building package `python-mythtv' in `./python-mythtv_0.21.svn20090414-0.0_amd64.deb'.
```

## NOTES

**dlocate** does not update its databases (see FILES section) automatically after new or upgraded packages have been installed with **dpkg** or **apt-get** etc.

A daily cron job is run to perform the update. Or the root user can run **update-dlocatedb** at any time to force an update.

## ENVIRONMENT

- **COLUMNS**

  Sets the number of columns **dlocate** should use when displaying formatted text. Currently only used by **-l**. Values lower than 80 are increased to 80.

## SEE ALSO

[**dpkg**(1)](/dpkg/1.md), [**update-dlocatedb**(8)](/update-dlocatedb/8.md), [**grep**(1)](/grep/1.md), [**grep-dctrl**(1)](/grep-dctrl/1.md).