How to interpret Aptitude's output?

[pcalvert]

Hey folks,

I have looked around and found numerous tutorials and explanations of how to install and remove packages, update, upgrade, etc., using aptitude (or apt-get). But nowhere have I seen an explanation of what the ouput means. There may be one somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. Where can I find an explanation of what the letters on the left-hand side of the output mean?

Here are a couple of examples:

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$ aptitude search opera
c   opera                           - The Opera Web Browser
v   opera-static                    -

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$ aptitude search abiword
i   abiword                         - WYSIWYG word processor based on GTK2
i A abiword-common                  - WYSIWYG word processor based on GTK2
p   abiword-doc                     - documentation for AbiWord
p   abiword-gnome                   - WYSIWYG word processor based on GTK2/GNOM
v   abiword-gtk                     -
i A abiword-help                    - online help for AbiWord
p   abiword-plugins                 - plugins for AbiWord
p   abiword-plugins-gnome           - plugins for AbiWord (with GNOME dependenc

Notice the letters to the left of the package names.

Phil

[osmo]

It is explained in the man pages, of course.

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Unless you pass the -F option, the output of aptitude search will look something like this:

i   apt                             - Advanced front-end for dpkg              
pi  apt-build                       - frontend to apt to build, optimize and in
cp  apt-file                        - APT package searching utility -- command-
ihA raptor-utils                    - Raptor RDF Parser utilities

Each search result is listed on a separate line. The first character of each line indicates the current state of the package: the most common states are p, meaning that no trace of the package exists on the system, c, meaning that the package was deleted but its configuration files remain on the system, i, meaning that the package is installed, and v, meaning that the package is virtual. The second character indicates the stored action (if any; otherwise a blank space is displayed) to be performed on the package, with the most common actions being i, meaning that the package will be installed, d, meaning that the package will be deleted, and p, meaning that the package and its configuration files will be removed. If the third character is A, the package was automatically installed.

For a complete list of the possible state and action flags, see the section ``Accessing Package Information'' in the aptitude reference guide.