---
name: "dose-ceve"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "dose-extra"
version: "7.0.0-6+b1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/dose-ceve"
---

# dose-ceve(1)

parse package metadata

## NAME

ceve - parse package metadata

## SYNOPSIS

- **ceve** \[-h\] \[-v\] \[-c *pkgspec*\] \[-r *pkgspec*\] \[--depth=*n*\] \[-T *format*\] \[-G *graph type*\] \[-o *filename*\] *input-spec* \[*input-spec*...\]

  ## DESCRIPTION

Ceve is a generalized metadata parser. It reads package specifications, extracts package metadata from them, performs some manipulations, and outputs the package metadata in one of several formats.

*input-spec* is a url specifying the input format and the file to get the input from. For a possible list of schemes, see the **-t** parameter.

Some examples of URLs:

- .

  deb://Packages.gz (the Debian file packages.gz in the current directory)

- .

  cudf:///home/examples/cudf/test.cudf (the CUDF file /home/examples/cudf/test.cudf)

## OPTIONS

### MISC OPTIONS

- **-h, --help**

  This option displays the help message.

- **-v, --verbose**

  Be verbose. This option can be repeated for more verbosity.

- **--version**

  Show program's version and exit.

- **--progress**

  Print progress bars.

- **--timers**

  Print timing information.

- **--quiet**

  Do no print any messages.

### INPUT OPTIONS

Dose3 accepts files compressed with [**gzip**(1)](/gzip/1.md) or [**bzip2**(1)](/bzip2/1.md), depending on compile-time options.

- **-t** *input-spec*

  Select the input type. Possible values are:

- .

  **cudf** Cudf file format

- .

  **pef** PEF file format. The PEF format (Package Exchange Format) is a generic 822 file format used to encode package dependencies. **deb**, **opam**, **debsrc** and  **edsp** are all based on the pef format

- .

  **csw** OpenCSW Solaris packages binary format

- .

  **opam** Opam Package universe in Opam/PEF format. This format is a 822 textual  format encoding the opam universe.

- .

  **deb** for Debian binary package files, also known as Packages files.

- .

  **debsrc** for Debian source package files, also knows as Sources files.

- .

  **edsp** apt-get External Dependency Solver Protocol

- .

  **hdlist** RPM hdlists. Binary file format.

- .

  **synthesis** urpmi synthesis hdlists. XML Based format

- **--trim**

  Consider only installable packages.

- **--latest** *n*

  Consider only the latest -*n* most recent versions of each package, older versions of packages are ignored.

- **-c, --cone=***vpkglist*

  The **match** of an atomic dependency (a package name p possibly together with a version constraint c) is the set of all packages in the repository with name p, and a version that satisfies the constraint c.  The dependency cone of a package p is the set of all matches of all atomic dependencies of p, together with their respective dependency cones. The package specification *pkgspec* is a list of packages (separated by a semicolon), where each package is specified as follows: (*name*,*version*).

  This option extracts the union of the dependency cones of all packages selected by *vpkglist*.

  Example: =over 12

- \-c 'golang-golang-x-tools (= 1:0.0~git20150716.0.87156cb+dfsg1-4),golang-golang-x-tools-dev'

  - **-r, --rcone=***vpkglist*

  Using the same syntax as in **-c**, this option use the reverse dependency relation to make the transitive closure.

- **--depth** *n*

  In combination with the **-c** or **-r** options, this specifies the maximum depth for the transitive closure.

- **--request** *installation-request*

  Specifies an installation request of the form "**install:** *vpkglist*" or "**remove:** *vpkglist*" or "**upgrade:** *vpkglist*" where *vpkglist* is a list of (real) packages possibly associated with a constraint. Ex.: bash (\< 2.0), exim (= 3.1-debian1). This option can be repeated to specify install, remove and upgrade actions.

  Examples:

  - \--request "install: bash (\< 2.0), exim (= 3.1-debian1)" --request "upgrade: apt-cudf"

    ### OUTPUT OPTIONS

- **-o, --outfile=***filename*

  Instead of stdout, send output to the file *filename*.

- **-d, --outdir=***directory*

  Set the output directory (default current directory)

- **--dot**

  Save the explanation graph (one for each package) in dot format.

- **-G** *graph type*

  Specifies the graph type format to compute. This option must be used together with the option **-T** *dot\|gml\|grml*. Default is **syn**. Possible values are:

- .

  **syn** for the syntactic graph where disjunctions nodes and conflicts are explicitly added to the graph.

- .

  **pkg** for the package graph where all dependencies are threated uniformly and conflicts are not added to the graph.

- .

  **strdeps** the strong dependency graph. A package p strong depends on q iff p cannot be installed if q is not installed.

- .

  **strcnf**

- .

  **conj** the conjunctive graph where only conjunctive dependencies are considered.

- .

  **dom**

- **-T** *format*

  Specifies the output format to use. Default is **cnf**. Possible values are:

- .

  **cnf** output in CNF format.

- .

  **dimacs** output in DIMACS format for CNF formulae.

- .

  **cudf** pretty-printed output in an RFC 822-like format

- .

  **deb** binary packages in deb822 format.

- .

  **debsrc** source packages in deb822 format.

- .

  **dot** a graph in Dot/GraphViz format.

- .

  **gml** a graph in GML format.

- .

  **grml** a graph in GraphML format.

- .

  **table** plain text output of three integer values: the universe size, the number of edges in the dependency graph, the number of conflicts in the universe.

### DEBIAN SPECIFIC OPTIONS

Multi-arch annotations are handled by ceve. Packages whose's architecture is neither the native architecture nor in the list of foreign architectures (see below) are ignored.

- **--deb-native-arch=***name*

  Specify the native architecture. The default behavior is to deduce the native architecture from the first package stanza in the input that has an architecture different from all.

- **--deb-foreign-archs=***name* \[,*name*\] ...

  Specify a comma-separated list of foreign architectures. The default is an empty list of foreign architectures.

- **--deb-ignore-essential**

  By default all essential package are considered as a dependency of all packages in the universe. This option allows the user to ignore essential packages.

- **--deb-host-arch=***name*

  Native/cross compile host architecture, defaults to native architecture.

- **--deb-builds-from**

  Add builds-from relationship of binary packages on source packages as dependency. This allows one to create graphs for bootstrapping purposes.

- **-P, --deb-profiles=***name*\[,*name*...\]

  Comma separated list of activated build profiles.

- **--deb-drop-b-d-indep**

  Drop Build-Depends-Indep dependencies from Debian source packages.

- **--deb-drop-b-d-arch**

  Drop Build-Depends-Arch dependencies from Debian source packages.

## EXAMPLES

Find all the reverse binary dependencies of the package **patchutils**:

```
        dose-ceve --deb-native-arch amd64 -r patchutils -T deb \
                deb:///var/lib/apt/lists/*_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages \
                | grep-dctrl -n -s Package '' | sort -u
```

Find all the source packages that (directly or indirectly) build depend on **patchutils**:

```
        dose-ceve -T debsrc --deb-native-arch=amd64 -r patchutils \
                debsrc:///var/lib/apt/lists/*_dists_sid_main_source_Sources \
                deb:///var/lib/apt/lists/*_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages \
                | grep-dctrl -n -s Package '' | sort -u
```

Find the source packages (-T debsrc) that have in a relation builds-from with all the binary package in the reverse dependency cone of **libssl-dev** (a specific version constraint).

```
  dose-ceve --deb-builds-from --deb-native-arch=amd64 -T debsrc \
  -r 'libssl-dev (>= 0.9.8)' deb://Sid-amd64-Packages-050812.bz2 \
  debsrc://Sid-Sources-050812.bz2
```