Sometimes it's not enough to know that a certain package is installed on your Linux system. You want to know the full list of files installed by the package, with exact locations of such files. This is when dpkg-query command may help.
Get List of Files Installed by a Package in Ubuntu
I mentioned xz-utils package for XZ archives yesterday, so let's look at the xz-utils package. This is how I can get the full list of files installed by it:
greys@xps:~ $ dpkg-query -L xz-utils [15/15] /. /usr /usr/bin /usr/bin/lzmainfo /usr/bin/xz /usr/bin/xzdiff /usr/bin/xzgrep /usr/bin/xzless /usr/bin/xzmore /usr/share /usr/share/doc /usr/share/doc/xz-utils /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/README.Debian /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/README.gz /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/copyright /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/extra /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/extra/7z2lzma /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/extra/7z2lzma/7z2lzma.bash /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/extra/scanlzma /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/extra/scanlzma/scanlzma.c /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/faq.txt.gz /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/history.txt.gz /usr/share/man /usr/share/man/man1 /usr/share/man/man1/lzmainfo.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xz.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xzdiff.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xzgrep.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xzless.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xzmore.1.gz /usr/bin/unxz /usr/bin/xzcat /usr/bin/xzcmp /usr/bin/xzegrep /usr/bin/xzfgrep /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/AUTHORS /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/NEWS.gz /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/THANKS /usr/share/doc/xz-utils/changelog.Debian.gz /usr/share/man/man1/unxz.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xzcat.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xzcmp.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xzegrep.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/xzfgrep.1.gz
Find Binaries Installed by a Package
Simple grep will make the previous example even more useful. Let's say we just want to know if a package installs any binaries, here's how we can do it:
greys@xps:~ $ dpkg-query -L xz-utils | grep bin /usr/bin /usr/bin/lzmainfo /usr/bin/xz /usr/bin/xzdiff /usr/bin/xzgrep /usr/bin/xzless /usr/bin/xzmore /usr/bin/unxz /usr/bin/xzcat /usr/bin/xzcmp /usr/bin/xzegrep /usr/bin/xzfgrep
That's it for today. Have fun!
See Also
