ept-cache(1)

NAME

ept-cache - High-level tool to access package information

SYNOPSIS

ept-cache [options] <command> [options and arguments]

DESCRIPTION

ept-cache is a high-level tool to access package information.

It can currently search and display data from four sources: the APT database, the Debtags tag information, Popcon package scores and a fast Xapian-based full text index on package descriptions.

If the Xapian data source is enabled, output results are by default sorted by relevance order, with the best results first. If you are seeing strange results in the output, rerun the search with the --full switch and look at the Search-Score headers.

COMMANDS

ept-cache accepts a non-switch argument, that indicates what is the operation that should be performed:

help [command]

With no arguments, print a summary of available commands. If given a command name as argument, print detailed informations about that command.

show <pkg>

show informations about a package, like apt-cache show does, but adds new fields with all available extra metadata

search [keywords]

output the names and descriptions of the packages that match the given tag expression

dumpavail [keywords]

output the full package database, with all extra metadata

reindex

updates the various indexes managed by libept (requires root).
It needs to be run as root

info

show information about the data providers.

related [pkgnames]

Show packages similar to the given ones. Package similarity is computed by how many common elements there are in their descriptions and their tags

OPTIONS

This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`-').

Every one of the commands listed above has its own set of options. To keep this manpage readable, all the options are presented together. Please refer to "ept-cache help command" to see which options are accepted by a given command.

Help options:

-h, -?, --help

print commandline help and exit.

--version

print the program version and exit.

--manpage=[hooks]

output the ept-cache manpage and exit.

Other options:

-v, --verbose

enable verbose output.

--debug

enable debugging output (including verbose output). Options for command help
Options for command show

Output options:

--names

output only the names of the packages.

-q, --quiet

do not write anything to standard output.

--short

output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

--full

output the full record of package data.

--tagcoll

tagcoll-style output.

--limit=count

maximum number of packages to show.

--cutoff=percent

do not show results that are this percent worse than the top result.

-s method, --sort=method

sort order (use 'list' for a list of supported options).

Options for command search

Output options:

--names

output only the names of the packages.

-q, --quiet

do not write anything to standard output.

--short

output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

--full

output the full record of package data.

--tagcoll

tagcoll-style output.

--limit=count

maximum number of packages to show.

--cutoff=percent

do not show results that are this percent worse than the top result.

-s method, --sort=method

sort order (use 'list' for a list of supported options).

Filter options:

--ftags=tagexpr

only print packages matching this tag expression.

-t name, --type=name

only print packages of a given type (use 'list' for a list of supported types).

Options for command dumpavail

Output options:

--names

output only the names of the packages.

-q, --quiet

do not write anything to standard output.

--short

output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

--full

output the full record of package data.

--tagcoll

tagcoll-style output.

--limit=count

maximum number of packages to show.

--cutoff=percent

do not show results that are this percent worse than the top result.

-s method, --sort=method

sort order (use 'list' for a list of supported options).

Filter options:

--ftags=tagexpr

only print packages matching this tag expression.

-t name, --type=name

only print packages of a given type (use 'list' for a list of supported types).

Options for command reindex

Other options:

-q, --quiet

do not write anything to standard output. Options for command info
Options for command related

Output options:

--names

output only the names of the packages.

-q, --quiet

do not write anything to standard output.

--short

output the names of the packages, plus a short description.

--full

output the full record of package data.

--tagcoll

tagcoll-style output.

--limit=count

maximum number of packages to show.

--cutoff=percent

do not show results that are this percent worse than the top result.

-s method, --sort=method

sort order (use 'list' for a list of supported options).

Filter options:

--ftags=tagexpr

only print packages matching this tag expression.

-t name, --type=name

only print packages of a given type (use 'list' for a list of supported types).

EXAMPLES

# Output all the available information about apt
ept-cache show apt
# Keyword search
ept-cache search image editor
# Keyword search with simple tag filter
ept-cache search -t gui image editor
# More results
ept-cache search -t gui --limit=300 image editor
# Output full package records for grep-dctrl.
# The records will contain improved Tag: headers, Popcon information and 
# any other information that is available through libept.
ept-cache dumpavail -t gui image editor
# Show packages similar to mutt
ept-cache related mutt
# Show packages somewhat inbetween mutt and iceweasel
ept-cache related mutt iceweasel
# Show what data sources are available
ept-cache info
# Build or update the indexes (needs root)
ept-cache reindex

SEE ALSO

debtags (1), apt-cache (1)

AUTHOR

ept-cache is maintained by [email protected].

This manpage has been automatically generated by the ept-cache program.