`apt_pkg` — The low-level bindings for apt-pkg¶

The apt_pkg extensions provides a more low-level way to work with apt. It can do everything apt can, and is written in C++. It has been in python-apt since the beginning.

Module Initialization¶

Initialization is needed for most functions, but not for all of them. Some can be called without having run init*(), but will not return the expected value.

apt_pkg.init_config()¶: Initialize the configuration of apt. This is needed for most operations.

apt_pkg.init_system()¶: Initialize the system.

apt_pkg.init()¶: A short cut to calling init_config() and init_system(). You can use this if you do not use the command line parsing facilities provided by parse_commandline(), otherwise call init_config(), parse the commandline afterwards and finally call init_system().

Exceptions¶

Working with the cache¶

class apt_pkg.Cache([progress: apt.progress.base.OpProgress])¶

A Cache object represents the cache used by APT which contains information about packages. The object itself provides no means to modify the cache or the installed packages, see the classes DepCache and PackageManager for such functionality.

The constructor takes an optional argument which must be a subclass of apt.progress.base.OpProgress. This object will then be used to display information during the cache opening process (or possible creation of the cache). It may also be None, in which case no progress will be emitted. If not given, progress will be printed to standard output.

Note

The cache supports colon-separated name:architecture pairs. For normal architectures, they are equal to a (name, architecture) tuple. For the “any” architecture behavior is different, as “name:any” is equivalent to (“name:any”, “any”). This is done so that “name:any” matches all packages with that name which have Multi-Arch: allowed set.

cache[pkgname]: Return the Package() object for the package name given by pkgname. If pkgname includes a colon, the part after the colon is used as the architecture.

cache[name, architecture]: Return the Package() object for the package with the given name and architecture.

pkgname in cache: Check whether a package with the name given by pkgname exists in the cache for the native architecture. If pkgname includes a colon, the part after the colon is used as the architecture.

(name, architecture) in cache: Check whether a package with the given name and architecture exists in the cache.

update(progress, sources[, pulse_interval]) → bool¶

Update the index files used by the cache. A call to this method does not affect the current Cache object, instead a new one should be created in order to use the changed index files.

The parameter progress takes an apt.progress.base.AcquireProgress object which will display the progress of fetching the index files. The parameter sources takes a SourceList object which lists the sources. The parameter progress takes an integer describing the interval (in microseconds) in which the pulse() method of the progress object will be called.

depends_count¶: The total number of dependencies stored in the cache.

file_list¶: A list of all PackageFile objects stored in the cache.

group_count¶: The number of groups in the cache.

groups¶

A sequence of Group objects, implemented as a GroupList object.

class GroupList¶

A simple sequence-like object which only provides a length and an implementation of __getitem__ for accessing groups at a certain index. Apart from being iterable, it can be used in the following ways:

list[index]: Get the Group object for the group at the position given by index in the GroupList list.

len(list): Return the length of the GroupList object list.

apt_pkg.is_multi_arch¶: An attribute determining whether the cache supports multi-arch.

apt_pkg.package_count¶: The total number of packages available in the cache. This value is equal to the length of the list provided by the packages attribute.

apt_pkg.package_file_count¶: The total number of Packages files available (the Packages files listing the packages). This is the same as the length of the list in the attribute file_list.

apt_pkg.packages¶

A sequence of Package objects, implemented as a PackageList object.

class apt_pkg.PackageList¶

A simple sequence-like object which only provides a length and an implementation of __getitem__ for accessing packages at a certain index. Apart from being iterable, it can be used in the following ways:

list[index]: Get the Package object for the package at the position given by index in the PackageList list.

len(list): Return the length of the PackageList object list.

apt_pkg.provides_count¶: The number of provided packages.

apt_pkg.ver_file_count¶: The total number of (Version, PackageFile) relations stored in the cache.

apt_pkg.version_count¶: The total number of package versions available in the cache.

Managing the cache with `DepCache`¶

class apt_pkg.DepCache(cache: apt_pkg.Cache)¶

A DepCache object provides access to more information about the objects made available by the Cache object as well as means to mark packages for removal and installation, among other actions.

The constructor takes a single argument which specifies the Cache object the new object shall be related to. While it is theoretically possible to create multiple DepCache objects for the same cache, they will not be independent from each other since they all access the same underlying C++ object.

Objects of this type provide several methods. Most of those methods are safe to use and should never raise any exception (all those methods for requesting state information or marking changes). If a method is expected to raise an exception, it will be stated in the description.

commit(acquire_progress, install_progress)¶

Commit all marked changes, while reporting the progress of fetching packages via the apt.progress.base.AcquireProgress object given by acquire_progress and reporting the installation of the package using the apt.progress.base.InstallProgress object given by install_progress.

If this fails, an exception of the type SystemError will be raised.

fix_broken() → bool¶: Try to fix all broken packages in the cache and return True in case of success. If an error occurred, a SystemError exception is raised.

get_candidate_ver(pkg: Package) → Version¶: Return the candidate version for the package given by the parameter pkg as a Version object. The default candidate for a package is the version with the highest pin, although a different one may be set using set_candidate_ver(). If no candidate can be found, return None instead.

init(progress: apt.progress.base.OpProgress)¶: Initialize the DepCache. This is done automatically when the cache is opened, but sometimes it may be useful to reinitialize the DepCache. Like the constructor of Cache, this function takes a single apt.progress.base.OpProgress object to display progress information.

read_pinfile(file: str)¶: A proxy function which calls the method Policy.read_pinfile() of the Policy object used by this object. This method raises a SystemError exception if the file could not be parsed.

set_candidate_ver(pkg: Package, version: Version) → bool¶: Set the candidate version of the package given by the Package object pkg to the version given by the Version object version and return True. If odd things happen, this function may raise a SystemError exception, but this should not happen in normal usage. See get_candidate_ver() for a way to retrieve the candidate version of a package.

upgrade([dist_upgrade=False]) → bool¶

Mark the packages for upgrade under the same conditions apt-get does. If dist_upgrade is True, also allow packages to be upgraded if they require installation/removal of other packages; just like apt-get dist-upgrade.

Despite returning a boolean value, this raises SystemError and does not return False if an error occurred.

The following methods can mark a single package for installation, removal, etc:

mark_auto(pkg: Package)¶: Mark the Package pkg as automatically installed.

mark_keep(pkg: Package)¶: Mark the Package pkg for keep.

mark_delete(pkg: Package[, purge])¶: Mark the Package pkg for delete. If purge is True, the configuration files will be removed as well.

mark_install(pkg: Package[, auto_inst=True[, from_user=True]])¶: Mark the Package pkg for install, and, if auto_inst is True, its dependencies as well. If from_user is True, the package will not be marked as automatically installed.

set_reinstall(pkg: Package)¶: Set if the Package pkg should be reinstalled.

The following methods can be used to check the state of a package:

is_auto_installed(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is automatically installed, that is, as a dependency of another package.

is_garbage(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is garbage, that is, if it was automatically installed and no longer referenced by other packages.

is_inst_broken(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is broken on the current install. This takes changes which have not been marked not into account.

is_now_broken(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is now broken, that is, if the package is broken if the marked changes are applied.

is_upgradable(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is upgradable, the package can then be marked for upgrade by calling the method mark_install().

marked_delete(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is marked for delete.

marked_downgrade(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package should be downgraded.

marked_install(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is marked for install.

marked_keep(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is marked for keep.

marked_reinstall(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package should be reinstalled.

marked_upgrade(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Return True if the package is marked for upgrade.

DepCache objects also provide several attributes containing information on the marked changes:

keep_count¶: Integer, number of packages marked as keep

inst_count¶: Integer, number of packages marked for installation.

del_count¶: Number of packages which should be removed.

broken_count¶: Number of packages which are broken.

usr_size¶: The size required for the changes on the filesystem. If you install packages, this is positive, if you remove them its negative.

deb_size¶: The size of the packages which are needed for the changes to be applied.

policy¶: The underlying Policy object used by the DepCache to select candidate versions.

Installing with `PackageManager`¶

class apt_pkg.PackageManager(depcache)¶

Abstraction of a package manager. This object takes care of retrieving packages, ordering the installation, and calling the package manager to do the actual installation.

get_archives(fetcher, list, records) → bool¶

Add all packages marked for installation (or upgrade, anything which needs a download) to the Acquire object referenced by fetcher.

The parameter list specifies a SourceList object which is used to retrieve the information about the archive URI for the packages which will be fetched.

The parameter records takes a PackageRecords object which will be used to look up the file name of the package.

do_install(status_fd: int) → int¶: Install the packages and return one of the class constants RESULT_COMPLETED, RESULT_FAILED, RESULT_INCOMPLETE. The argument status_fd can be used to specify a file descriptor that APT will write status information on (see README.progress-reporting in the apt source code for information on what will be written there).

fix_missing() → bool¶: Fix the installation if a package could not be downloaded.

RESULT_COMPLETED¶: A constant for checking whether the result of the call to do_install() is ‘failed’.

RESULT_FAILED¶: A constant for checking whether the result of the call to do_install() is ‘failed’.

RESULT_INCOMPLETE¶: A constant for checking whether the result of the call to do_install() is ‘incomplete’.

All instances of this class also support the following methods:

Note

This methods are provided mainly for subclassing purposes and should not be used in most programs. This class is a subclass of an internal _PackageManager which does not provide that methods. As the public C++ API creates such an object without those methods, you should not rely on those methods to be available unless you used the constructor of PackageManager to create the object.

configure(pkg: Package) → bool¶: Notify the package manager that the Package given by pkg is to be configured. Must return a True value or None to continue, or a value which is False if evaluated as boolean to abort.

New in version 0.8.0.

install(pkg: Package, filename: str) → bool¶: Notify the package manager that the Package given by pkg is to be installed from the .deb located at filename. Must return a True value or None to continue, or a value which is False if evaluated as boolean to abort.

New in version 0.8.0.

remove(pkg: Package, purge: bool) → bool¶: Notify the package manager that the Package given by pkg is to be removed. If purge is True, the package shall be purged. Must return a True value or None to continue, or a value which is False if evaluated as boolean to abort.

New in version 0.8.0.

go(status_fd: int) → bool¶: Start dpkg, writing status information to the file descriptor given by status_fd. Must return a True value or None to continue, or a value which is False if evaluated as boolean to abort.

New in version 0.8.0.

reset()¶: Reset the package manager for a new round.

New in version 0.8.0.

Installation ordering with `OrderList`¶

class apt_pkg.OrderList(depcache: DepCache)¶

Represent a pkgOrderList, used for installation ordering. This class provides several methods and attributes, is complicated and should not be used by normal programs.

New in version 0.8.0.

This class is a sequence and supports the following operations:

list[index]: Get the package at the given index in the list. Negative index is supported.

len(list): The length of the list.

It also supports the append() method from list:

append(pkg: Package)¶: Append a new package to the end of the list. Please note that you may not append a package twice, as only as much packages as in the cache can be added.

The class also defines several specific attributes and methods, to be described hereinafter.

score(pkg: Package)¶: Return the score of the package. Packages are basically ordered by descending score.

This class allows flags to be set on packages. Those flags are:

FLAG_ADDED¶

FLAG_ADD_PENDING¶

FLAG_IMMEDIATE¶

FLAG_LOOP¶

FLAG_UNPACKED¶

FLAG_CONFIGURED¶

FLAG_REMOVED¶

FLAG_STATES_MASK¶: Same as FLAG_UNPACKED | FLAG_CONFIGURED | FLAG_REMOVED

FLAG_IN_LIST¶

FLAG_AFTER¶

The methods to work with those flags are:

flag(pkg: Package, flag: int[, unset_flags: int])¶: Flag a package. Sets the flags given in flag and unsets any flags given in unset_flags.

is_flag(pkg: Package, flag: int)¶: Check whether the flags in flag are set for the package.

wipe_flags(flags: int)¶: Remove the flags in flags from all packages.

is_missing(pkg: Package)¶: Check if the package is missing (not really usable right now)

is_now(pkg: Package)¶: Check if the package is flagged for any state but removal.

The following methods for ordering are provided:

order_critical()¶: Order the packages for critical unpacking; that is, only respect pre-dependencies.

order_unpack()¶: Order the packages for unpacking, repecting Pre-Depends and Conflicts.

order_configure()¶: Order the packages for configuration, respecting Depends.

Improve performance with `ActionGroup`¶

class apt_pkg.ActionGroup(depcache)¶

Create a new ActionGroup() object for the DepCache object given by the parameter depcache.

ActionGroup() objects make operations on the cache faster by delaying certain cleanup operations until the action group is released.

An action group is also a context manager and therefore supports the with statement. But because it becomes active as soon as it is created, you should not create an ActionGroup() object before entering the with statement. Thus, you should always use the following form:

with apt_pkg.ActionGroup(depcache):
    ...

For code which has to run on Python versions prior to 2.5, you can also use the traditional way:

actiongroup = apt_pkg.ActionGroup(depcache)
...
actiongroup.release()

In addition to the methods required to implement the context manager interface, ActionGroup objects provide the following method:

release()¶: Release the ActionGroup. This will reactive the collection of package garbage.

Resolving Dependencies with `ProblemResolver`¶

class apt_pkg.ProblemResolver(depcache: DepCache)¶

ProblemResolver objects take care of resolving problems with dependencies. They mark packages for installation/removal and try to satisfy all dependencies. The constructor takes a single argument of the type apt_pkg.DepCache to determine the cache that shall be manipulated in order to resolve the problems.

clear(pkg: Package)¶: Revert the action of calling protect() or remove() on a package, resetting it to the default state.

install_protect()¶: Mark all protected packages for installation.

protect(pkg: Package)¶: Mark the package given by pkg as protected; that is, its state will not be changed.

remove(pkg: Package)¶: Mark the package given by pkg for removal in the resolver.

resolve([fix_broken: bool = True]) → bool¶: Try to intelligently resolve problems by installing and removing packages. If fix_broken is True, apt will try to repair broken dependencies of installed packages.

resolve_by_keep() → bool¶: Try to resolve the problems without installing or removing packages.

`Group` of packages with the same name¶

class apt_pkg.Group(cache: Cache, name: str)¶

New in version 0.8.0.

A collection of packages in which all packages have the same name. Groups are used in multi-arch environments, where two or more packages have the same name, but different architectures.

Group objects provide the following parts for sequential access:

group[index]: Get the package at the given index in the group.

Note

Groups are internally implemented using a linked list. The object keeps a pointer to the current object and the first object, so access to the first element, or accesses in order have a complexity of O(1). Random-access complexity is ranges from O(1) to O(n).

Group objects also provide special methods to find single packages:

find_package(architecture: str) → Package¶: Find a package with the groups name and the architecture given in the argument architecture. If no such package exists, return None.

find_preferred_package(prefer_nonvirtual: bool = True) → Package¶

Find the preferred package. This is the package of the native architecture (specified in APT::Architecture) if available, or the package from the first foreign architecture. If no package could be found, return None

If prefer_nonvirtual is True, the preferred package will be a non-virtual package, if one exists.

`Package` information¶

class apt_pkg.Package¶

Represent a package. A package is uniquely identified by its name and architecture and each package can have zero or more versions which can be accessed via the version_list property. Packages can be installed and removed by a DepCache object.

Attributes:

current_ver¶

The version currently installed as a Version object, or None if the package is not installed.

get_fullname([pretty: bool = False]) → str¶

Get the full name of the package, including the architecture. If pretty is True, the architecture is omitted for native packages, that is, an amd64 “apt” package on an amd64 system would give “apt”.

New in version 0.7.100.3.
has_provides¶
A boolean value determining whether the list available via the attribute provides_list has at least one element. This value may be used in combination with has_versions to check whether a package is virtual; that is, it has no versions and is provided at least once:
pkg.has_provides and not pkg.has_versions
has_versions¶
A boolean value determining whether the list available via the attribute version_list has at least one element. This value may be used in combination with has_provides to check whether a package is virtual; that is, it has no versions and is provided at least once:
pkg.has_provides and not pkg.has_versions
id¶

The ID of the package. This can be used to store information about the package. The ID is an int value.

name¶

This is the name of the package.

provides_list¶

A list of all package versions providing this package. Each element of the list is a triplet, where the first element is the name of the provided package, the second element the provided version (empty string), and the third element the version providing this package as a Version object.

rev_depends_list¶

An iterator of Dependency objects for dependencies on this package. The returned iterator is implemented by the class DependencyList:

class DependencyList¶

A simple list-like type for representing multiple dependency objects in an efficient manner; without having to generate all Dependency objects in advance.

list[index]

Return the item at the position index in the list.

__len__()¶

The length of the list. This method should not be used irectly, instead Python’s built-in function len() should be used.

apt_pkg.section¶

The section of the package, as specified in the record. The list of possible sections is defined in the Policy. This is a string.

Deprecated since version 1.0: A package can have multiple versions with different sections, so the section information should be accessed from the version class.

apt_pkg.version_list¶

A list of Version objects for all versions of this package available in the cache.

States:

apt_pkg.selected_state¶

The state we want it to be, ie. if you mark a package for installation, this is apt_pkg.SELSTATE_INSTALL.

See Package selection states for a list of available states.

apt_pkg.inst_state¶

The state the currently installed version is in. This is normally apt_pkg.INSTSTATE_OK, unless the installation failed.

See Installed states for a list of available states.

apt_pkg.current_state¶

The current state of the package (not installed, unpacked, installed, etc). See Package States for a list of available states.

Flags:

apt_pkg.essential¶

Whether the package has the ‘Essential’ flag set; that is, whether it has a field ‘Essential: yes’ in its record.

apt_pkg.important¶

Whether the package has the (obsolete) ‘Important’ flag set; that is, whether it has a field ‘Important: yes’ in its record.

Example:¶

#!/usr/bin/python
"""Example for packages. Print all essential and important packages"""

import apt_pkg


def main():
    """Main."""
    apt_pkg.init_config()
    apt_pkg.init_system()
    cache = apt_pkg.Cache()
    print("Essential packages:")
    for pkg in cache.packages:
        if pkg.essential:
            print(" ", pkg.name)
    print("Important packages:")
    for pkg in cache.packages:
        if pkg.important:
            print(" ", pkg.name)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

`Version`¶

class apt_pkg.Version¶

The version object contains all information related to a specific package version.

arch¶: The architecture of the package, eg. amd64 or all.

depends_list¶: This is basically the same as depends_list_str, but instead of the (‘pkgname’, ‘version’, ‘relation’) tuples, it returns Dependency objects, which can assist you with useful functions.

depends_list_str¶

A dictionary of dependencies. The key specifies the type of the dependency (‘Depends’, ‘Recommends’, etc.).

The value is a list, containing items which refer to the or-groups of dependencies. Each of these or-groups is itself a list, containing tuples like (‘pkgname’, ‘version’, ‘relation’) for each or-choice.

An example return value for a package with a ‘Depends: python (>= 2.4)’ would be:

{'Depends': [
                [
                 ('python', '2.4', '>=')
                ]
            ]
}

The same for a dependency on A (>= 1) | B (>= 2):

{'Depends': [
                [
                    ('A', '1', '>='),
                    ('B', '2', '>='),
                ]
            ]
}

The comparison operators are not the Debian ones, but the standard comparison operators as used in languages such as C and Python. This means that ‘>’ means “larger than” and ‘<’ means “less than”.

downloadable¶: Whether this package can be downloaded from a remote site.

file_list¶: A list of (PackageFile, int: index) tuples for all Package files containing this version of the package.

hash¶: An integer hash value used for the internal storage.

id¶: A numeric identifier which uniquely identifies this version in all versions in the cache.

installed_size¶: The size of the package (in kilobytes), when unpacked on the disk.

multi_arch¶

The multi-arch state of the package. Can be one of the following attributes.

MULTI_ARCH_NO¶

No multi-arch

MULTI_ARCH_ALL¶

An Architecture: all package

MULTI_ARCH_FOREIGN¶

Can satisfy dependencies of foreign-architecture packages

MULTI_ARCH_ALL_FOREIGN¶

MULTI_ARCH_FOREIGN for Architecture: all packages.

MULTI_ARCH_SAME¶

Multiple versions from different architectures may be installed in parallel, but may only satisfy dependencies of packages from the same architecture

MULTI_ARCH_ALLOWED¶

Installation in parallel and satisfying pkg:any style dependencies is allowed.

MULTI_ARCH_ALL_ALLOWED¶

MULTI_ARCH_ALLOWED for Architecture: all packages.

parent_pkg¶: The Package object this version belongs to.

priority¶

The integer representation of the priority. This can be used to speed up comparisons a lot, compared to priority_str.

The values are defined in the apt_pkg extension, see Priorities for more information.

priority_str¶: Return the priority of the package version, as a string, eg. “optional”.

provides_list¶: This returns a list of all packages provided by this version. Like Package.provides_list, it returns a list of tuples of the form (‘virtualpkgname’, ‘’, Version), where as the last item is the same as the object itself.

section¶: The usual sections (eg. admin, net, etc.). Prefixed with the component name for packages not in main (eg. non-free/admin).

size¶: The size of the .deb file, in bytes.

translated_description¶: Return a Description object for the translated description of this package version.

ver_str¶: The version, as a string.

`Dependency`¶

class apt_pkg.Dependency¶

Represent a dependency from one package to another one.

all_targets()¶: A list of all possible target Version objects which satisfy this dependency.

comp_type¶: The type of comparison (<,<=,=,!=,>=,>,), as string. Note that the empty string is a valid string as well, if no version is specified.

dep_type¶: The type of the dependency, as string, eg. “Depends”.

dep_type_enum¶: The type of the dependency, as an integer which can be compared to one of the TYPE_* constants below.

dep_type_untranslated¶: The type of the depndency, as an untranslated string.

id¶: The ID of the package, as integer.

parent_pkg¶: The Package object of the package which declares the dependency. This is the same as using ParentVer.ParentPkg.

parent_ver¶: The Version object of the parent version, ie. the package which declares the dependency.

target_pkg¶: The Package object of the target package.

target_ver¶: The target version of the dependency, as string. Empty string if the dependency is not versioned.

The following constants describe all values the attribute dep_type_enum can take:

TYPE_CONFLICTS¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

TYPE_DEPENDS¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

TYPE_DPKG_BREAKS¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

TYPE_ENHANCES¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

TYPE_OBSOLETES¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

TYPE_PREDEPENDS¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

TYPE_RECOMMENDS¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

TYPE_REPLACES¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

TYPE_SUGGESTS¶: Constant for checking against dep_type_enum

Example: Find all missing dependencies¶

With the help of Dependency.AllTargets(), you can easily find all packages with broken dependencies:

#!/usr/bin/python
"""Check the archive for missing dependencies"""
import apt_pkg


def fmt_dep(dep):
    """Format a Dependency object [of apt_pkg] as a string."""
    ret = dep.target_pkg.name
    if dep.target_ver:
        ret += " (%s %s)" % (dep.comp_type, dep.target_ver)
    return ret


def check_version(pkgver):
    """Check the version of the package"""
    missing = []

    for or_group in pkgver.depends_list.get("Pre-Depends", []) + \
                    pkgver.depends_list.get("Depends", []):
        if not any(dep.all_targets() for dep in or_group):
            # If none of the or-choices can be satisfied, add it to missing
            missing.append(or_group)

    if missing:
        print("Package:", pkgver.parent_pkg.name)
        print("Version:", pkgver.ver_str)
        print("Missing:")
        print(", ".join(" | ".join(fmt_dep(dep) for dep in or_group))
                        for or_group in missing)
        print()


def main():
    """The main function."""
    apt_pkg.init_config()
    apt_pkg.init_system()

    cache = apt_pkg.Cache()

    for pkg in sorted(cache.packages, key=lambda pkg: pkg.name):
        # pkg is from a list of packages, sorted by name.
        for version in pkg.version_list:
            # Check every version
            for pfile, _ in version.file_list:
                if (pfile.origin == "Debian" and pfile.component == "main" and
                        pfile.archive == "unstable"):
                    # We only want packages from Debian unstable main.
                    check_version(version)
                    break

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

`Description`¶

class apt_pkg.Description¶

Represent the description of the package.

language_code¶: The language code of the description; or, if the description is untranslated, an empty string.

md5¶: The MD5 checksum of the description.

file_list¶: A list of tuples (packagefile: PackageFile, index: int).

Package Pinning with `Policy`¶

class apt_pkg.Policy(cache: apt_pkg.Cache)¶

Representation of the policy of the Cache object given by cache. This provides a superset of policy-related functionality compared to the DepCache class. The DepCache can be used for most purposes, but there may be some cases where a special policy class is needed.

create_pin(type: str, pkg: str, data: str, priority: int)¶: Create a pin for the policy. The parameter type refers to one of the strings ‘Version’, ‘Release’, or ‘Origin’. The argument pkg is the name of the package. The parameter data refers to the value (such as ‘unstable’ for type=’Release’) and the other possible options. The parameter ‘priority’ gives the priority of the pin.

get_candidate_ver(package: apt_pkg.Package) → apt_pkg.Version¶: Get the best package for the job; that is, the package with the highest pin priority.

get_match(package: apt_pkg.Package) → apt_pkg.Version¶: Get a version for the package.

get_priority(package: apt_pkg.Package) → int¶: Get the pin priority of the package given by package.

read_pindir(dirname: str) → bool¶: Read the pin files in the given dir (e.g. ‘/etc/apt/preferences.d’) and add them to the policy.

read_pinfile(filename: str) → bool¶: Read the pin file given by filename (e.g. ‘/etc/apt/preferences’) and add it to the policy.

Index Files¶

class apt_pkg.MetaIndex¶

Represent a Release file as stored in the cache.

uri¶

The URI the meta index file is located at, as a string.

dist¶

The distribution stored in the meta index, as a string.

is_trusted¶

A boolean value determining whether the meta index can be trusted. This is True for signed Release files.

index_files¶

A list of all IndexFile objects associated with this meta index.

class apt_pkg.IndexFile¶

Represent an index file, that is, package indexes, translation indexes, and source indexes.

archive_uri(path: str) → str¶: Return the URI to the given path in the archive.

label¶: The label of the index file.

describe¶: A string describing this object.

exists¶: A boolean value determining whether the index file exists.

has_packages¶: A boolean value determining whether the index file has packages.

size¶: The size of the file, measured in bytes.

is_trusted¶: A boolean value determining whether the file can be trusted; that is, because it is from a source with a GPG signed Release file.

class apt_pkg.PackageFile¶

Provide access to an index file stored in the cache, such as /var/lib/dpkg/status.

architecture¶: The architecture of the package file. This attribute normally contains an empty string and is thus not very useful.

archive¶: The archive of the package file as set in the Release file via the “Suite” field. If there is no Release file, this is an empty string.

component¶: The component of the package file, if it is provided by a repository using the dists/ hierarchy. For other packages files, this property is an empty string.

filename¶: The path to the file on the local filesystem.

id¶: The ID of the package. This is an integer which can be used to store further information about the file [eg. as dictionary key].

index_type¶: A string describing the type of index. Known values are “Debian Package Index”, “Debian Translation Index”, and “Debian dpkg status file”.

label¶: The label of the package file as set in the release file via the ‘Label’ field. If there is no Release file, this attribute is an empty string.

not_automatic¶: Whether packages from this list will be updated automatically. The default for example is False.

not_source¶

Whether the file has no source from which it can be updated. In such a case, the value is True; else False. For example, it is False for /var/lib/dpkg/status.

Example:

for pkgfile in cache.file_list:
    if pkgfile.not_source:
        print('The file %s has no source.' % pkgfile.filename)

origin¶: The Origin, as set in the Release file

site¶: The hostname of the site.

size¶: The size of the file.

version¶: The version, as set in the release file (eg. “4.0” for “Etch”)

The following example shows how to use PackageFile:

#!/usr/bin/python
import apt_pkg


def main():
    """Example for PackageFile()"""
    apt_pkg.init()
    cache = apt_pkg.Cache()
    for pkgfile in cache.file_list:
        print('Package-File:', pkgfile.filename)
        print('Index-Type:', pkgfile.index_type)  # 'Debian Package Index'
        if pkgfile.not_source:
            print('Source: None')
        else:
            if pkgfile.site:
                # There is a source, and a site, print the site
                print('Source:', pkgfile.site)
            else:
                # It seems to be a local repository
                print('Source: Local package file')
        if pkgfile.not_automatic:
            # The system won't be updated automatically (eg. experimental)
            print('Automatic: No')
        else:
            print('Automatic: Yes')
        print()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Records (Release files, Packages, Sources)¶

class apt_pkg.IndexRecords¶

Represent a Release file and provide means to read information from the file. This class provides several methods:

get_dist() → str¶: Return the distribution set in the Release file.

load(filename: str)¶: Load the file located at the path given by filename.

lookup(key: str) -> (HashString, int)¶: Look up the filename given by key and return a tuple (hash, size), where the first element hash is a HashString object and the second element size is an int object.

class apt_pkg.PackageRecords(cache: apt_pkg.Cache)¶

Provide further information about the packages in the Cache object cache. This efficiently parses the package files to provide information not available in the cache, such as maintainer, hash sums, description, and the file name of the package. It also provides the complete record of the package.

lookup(verfile_iter: (PackageFile, int)) → bool¶

Change the actual package to the package given by the verfile_iter.

The parameter verfile_iter refers to a tuple consisting of (PackageFile(), int: index), as returned by various file_list attributes such as Version.file_list.

Example (shortened):

cand = depcache.get_candidate_ver(cache['python-apt'])
records.lookup(cand.file_list[0])
# Now you can access the record
print(records.source_pkg) # == python-apt

filename¶: Return the field ‘Filename’ of the record. This is the path to the package, relative to the base path of the archive.

hashes¶: A apt_pkg.HashStringList of all hashes.

New in version 1.1.

md5_hash¶: Return the MD5 hashsum of the package This refers to the field ‘MD5Sum’ in the raw record.

Deprecated since version 1.1: Use hashes instead.

sha1_hash¶: Return the SHA1 hashsum of the package. This refers to the field ‘SHA1’ in the raw record.

Deprecated since version 1.1: Use hashes instead.

sha256_hash¶: Return the SHA256 hashsum of the package. This refers to the field ‘SHA256’ in the raw record.

New in version 0.7.9.

Deprecated since version 1.1: Use hashes instead.

source_pkg¶: The name of the source package, if different from the name of the binary package. This information is retrieved from the ‘Source’ field.

source_ver¶: The version of the source package, if it differs from the version of the binary package. Just like ‘source_pkg’, this information is retrieved from the ‘Source’ field.

maintainer¶: Return the maintainer of the package.

short_desc¶: Return the short description. This is the summary on the first line of the ‘Description’ field.

long_desc¶: Return the long description. These are lines 2-END from the ‘Description’ field.

name¶: Return the name of the package. This is the ‘Package’ field.

homepage¶: Return the Homepage. This is the ‘Homepage’ field.

record¶

Return the whole record as a string. If you want to access fields of the record not available as an attribute, you can use apt_pkg.TagSection to parse the record and access the field name.

Example:

section = apt_pkg.TagSection(records.record)
print(section['SHA256']) # Use records.sha256_hash instead

class apt_pkg.SourceRecords¶

Provide an easy way to look up the records of source packages and provide easy attributes for some widely used fields of the record.

Note

If the Lookup failed, because no package could be found, no error is raised. Instead, the attributes listed below are simply not existing anymore (same applies when no Lookup has been made, or when it has been restarted).

lookup(pkgname: str) → bool¶

Look up the source package with the given name. Each call moves the position of the records parser forward. If there are no more records, return None. If the lookup failed this way, access to any of the attributes will result in an AttributeError.

Imagine a package P with two versions X, Y. The first lookup(P) would set the record to version X and the second lookup(P) to version Y. A third call would return None and access to any of the below attributes will result in an AttributeError

restart()¶

Restart the lookup process. This moves the parser to the first package and lookups can now be made just like on a new object.

Imagine a package P with two versions X, Y. The first Lookup(P) would set the record to version X and the second Lookup(P) to version Y. If you now call restart(), the internal position will be cleared. Now you can call lookup(P) again to move to X.

binaries¶: Return a list of strings describing the package names of the binaries created by the source package. This matches the ‘Binary’ field in the raw record.

build_depends¶: Return a dictionary representing the build-time dependencies of the package. The format is the same as for Version.depends_list_str and possible keys being "Build-Depends", "Build-Depends-Indep", "Build-Conflicts" or "Build-Conflicts-Indep".

files¶: The list of files. This returns a list of tuples with the contents (str: md5, int: size, str: path, str:type), where ‘type’ can be ‘diff’ (includes .debian.tar.gz), ‘dsc’, ‘tar’.

index¶: A list of IndexFile objects associated with this source package record.

maintainer¶: A string describing the name of the maintainer.

package¶: The name of the source package.

record¶: The whole record, as a string. You can use apt_pkg.ParseSection() if you need to parse it. You need to parse the record to access fields not available via the attributes such as ‘Standards-Version’

section¶: A string describing the section.

version¶: A string describing the version of the source package.

The Acquire interface¶

The Acquire Interface is responsible for all sorts of downloading in apt. All packages, index files, etc. downloading is done using the Acquire functionality.

The apt_pkg module provides a subset of this functionality which allows you to implement file downloading in your applications. Together with the PackageManager class you can also fetch all the packages marked for installation.

class apt_pkg.Acquire([progress: apt.progress.base.AcquireProgress])¶

Coordinate the retrieval of files via network or local file system (using copy://path/to/file style URIs). Items can be added to an Acquire object using various means such as creating instances of AcquireFile or the methods SourceList.get_indexes() and PackageManager.get_archives().

Acquire objects maintain a list of items which will be fetched or have been fetched already during the lifetime of this object. To add new items to this list, you can create new AcquireFile objects which allow you to add single files.

The constructor takes an optional parameter progress which takes an apt.progress.base.AcquireProgress object. This object may then report progress information (see apt.progress.text for reporting progress to a I/O stream).

Acquire items have two methods to start and stop the fetching:

run() → int¶: Fetch all the items which have been added by AcquireFile and return one of the constants RESULT_CANCELLED, RESULT_CONTINUE, RESULT_FAILED to describe the result of the run.

shutdown()¶

Shut the fetcher down. This removes all items from the queue and makes all AcquireItem, AcquireWorker, AcquireItemDesc objects useless. Accessing an object of one of those types can cause a segfault then.

Removing an item does not mean that the already fetched data will be removed from the destination. Instead, APT might use the partial result and continue from thereon.

Furthermore, they provide three attributes which provide information on how much data is already available and how much data still needs to be fetched:

fetch_needed¶: The amount of data that has to be fetched in order to fetch all queued items.

partial_present¶: The amount of data which is already available.

total_needed¶: The total amount of bytes needed (including those of files which are already present).

They also provide two attributes representing the items being processed and the workers fetching them:

items¶: A list of AcquireItem objects which are attached to the to this Acquire object. This includes all items ever attached to this object (except if they were removed using, for example, shutdown() or by deleting an AcquireFile object.)

workers¶: A list of AcquireWorker objects which are currently active on this instance.

The Acquire class comes with three constants which represents the results of the run() method:

RESULT_CANCELLED¶: The fetching has been aborted, e.g. due to a progress class returning False in its pulse() method.

RESULT_CONTINUE¶

All items have been fetched successfully or failed transiently and the process has not been canceled.

You need to look at the status of each item and check if it has not failed transiently to discover errors like a Not Found when acquiring packages.

RESULT_FAILED¶: An item failed to fetch due to some reasons.

class apt_pkg.AcquireItem¶

An AcquireItem object represents a single item of an Acquire object. It is an abstract class to represent various types of items which are implemented as subclasses. The only exported subclass is AcquireFile which can be used to fetch files.

complete¶: A boolean value which is True only if the item has been fetched successfully.

desc_uri¶: An URI describing where the item is located at.

destfile¶: The path to the local location where the fetched data will be stored at.

error_text¶: The error message. For example, when a file does not exist on a HTTP server, this will contain a 404 error message.

filesize¶: The size of the file, in bytes. If the size of the to be fetched file is unknown, this attribute is set to 0.

id¶: The ID of the item. This attribute is normally set to 0, users may set a custom value here, for instance in an overridden apt.progress.base.AcquireProgress.fetch() method (the progress class could keep a counter, increase it by one for every fetch() call and assign the current value to this attribute).

is_trusted¶: A boolean value determining whether the file is trusted. Only True if the item represents a package coming from a repository which is signed by one of the keys in APT’s keyring.

local¶: A boolean value determining whether this file is locally available (True) or whether it has to be fetched from a remote source (False).

mode¶: Old name for active_subprocess

Deprecated since version 1.0.

active_subprocess¶: The name of the active subprocess (for instance, ‘gzip’, ‘rred’ or ‘gpgv’).

New in version 1.0.

Status:

The following attribute represents the status of the item. This class provides several constants for comparing against this value which are listed here as well.

status¶: Integer, representing the status of the item. This attribute can be compared against the following constants to gain useful information on the item’s status.

STAT_AUTH_ERROR¶: An authentication error occurred while trying to fetch the item.

STAT_DONE¶: The item is completely fetched and there have been no problems while fetching the item.

STAT_ERROR¶: An error occurred while trying to fetch the item. This error is normally not related to authentication problems, as thus are dealt with using STAT_AUTH_ERROR.

STAT_FETCHING¶: The item is being fetched currently.

STAT_IDLE¶: The item is yet to be fetched.

STAT_TRANSIENT_NETWORK_ERROR¶: There was a network error.

class apt_pkg.AcquireFile(owner, uri[, hash, size, descr, short_descr, destdir, destfile])¶

Create a new AcquireFile() object and register it with acquire, so it will be fetched. You must always keep around a reference to the object, otherwise it will be removed from the Acquire queue again.

The parameter owner refers to an Acquire() object as returned by GetAcquire(). The file will be added to the Acquire queue automatically.

The parameter uri refers to the location of the file, any protocol of apt is supported.

The parameter hash refers to the hash of the file. If this is set libapt will check the file after downloading. See HashString for the combined form string format description.

The parameter size can be used to specify the size of the package, which can then be used to calculate the progress and validate the download.

The parameter descr is a description of the download. It may be used to describe the item in the progress class. short_descr is the short form of it.

The parameters descr and short_descr can be used to specify descriptions for the item. The string passed to descr should describe the file and its origin (e.g. “http://localhost sid/main python-apt 0.7.94.2”) and the string passed to short_descr should be one word such as the name of a package.

Normally, the file will be stored in the current directory using the file name given in the URI. This directory can be changed by passing the name of a directory to the destdir parameter. It is also possible to set a path to a file using the destfile parameter, but both can not be specified together.

In terms of attributes, this class is a subclass of AcquireItem and thus inherits all its attributes.

class apt_pkg.AcquireWorker¶

An AcquireWorker object represents a sub-process responsible for fetching files from remote locations. There is no possibility to create instances of this class from within Python, but a list of objects of currently active workers is provided by Acquire.workers.

Objects of this type provide several attributes which give information about the worker’s current activity.

current_item¶: The item which is currently being fetched. This returns an AcquireItemDesc object.

current_size¶: How many bytes of the file have been downloaded. Zero if the current progress of the file cannot be determined.

resumepoint¶: The amount of data which was already available when the download was started.

status¶: The most recent (localized) status string received from the sub-process.

total_size¶: The total number of bytes to be downloaded for the item. Zero if the total size is unknown.

class apt_pkg.AcquireItemDesc¶

An AcquireItemDesc object stores information about the item which can be used to describe the item. Objects of this class are used in the progress classes, see the apt.progress.base.AcquireProgress documentation for information how.

description¶: The long description given to the item.

owner¶: The AcquireItem object owning this object.

shortdesc¶: A short description which has been given to this item.

uri¶: The URI from which this item would be downloaded.

Hashes¶

The apt_pkg module also provides several hash functions. If you develop applications with python-apt it is often easier to use these functions instead of the ones provides in Python’s hashlib module.

The module provides the two classes Hashes and HashString for generic hash support:

class apt_pkg.Hashes([object: (bytes, file)])¶

Calculate hashes for the given object. It can be used to create all supported hashes for a file.

The parameter ‘object’ can be a bytestring, an object providing the fileno() method, or an integer describing a file descriptor.

md5¶: The MD5Sum of the file as a string.

sha1¶: The SHA1Sum of the file as a string.

sha256¶: The SHA256Sum of the file as a string.

class apt_pkg.HashString(type: str[, hash: str])¶

HashString objects store the type of a hash and the corresponding hash. They are used by e.g IndexRecords.lookup(). The first parameter, type refers to one of “MD5Sum”, “SHA1” and “SHA256”. The second parameter hash is the corresponding hash.

You can also use a combined form by passing a string with type and hash separated by a colon as the only argument. For example:

HashString("MD5Sum:d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e")

str(hashstring): Convert the HashString to a string by joining the hash type and the hash using ‘:’, e.g. "MD5Sum:d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e".

hashtype¶: The type of the hash, as a string. This may be “MD5Sum”, “SHA1”, “SHA256” or “SHA512”.

verify_file(filename: str) → bool¶: Verify that the file given by the parameter filename matches the hash stored in this object.

The apt_pkg module also provides the functions md5sum(), sha1sum() and sha256sum() for creating a single hash from a bytes or file object:

apt_pkg.md5sum(object)¶: Return the md5sum of the object. object may either be a string, in which case the md5sum of the string is returned, or a file() object (or a file descriptor), in which case the md5sum of its contents is returned.

Changed in version 0.7.100: Added support for using file descriptors.

apt_pkg.sha1sum(object)¶: Return the sha1sum of the object. object may either be a string, in which case the sha1sum of the string is returned, or a file() object (or a file descriptor), in which case the sha1sum of its contents is returned.

Changed in version 0.7.100: Added support for using file descriptors.

apt_pkg.sha256sum(object)¶: Return the sha256sum of the object. object may either be a string, in which case the sha256sum of the string is returned, or a file() object (or a file descriptor), in which case the sha256sum of its contents is returned.

Changed in version 0.7.100: Added support for using file descriptors.

Debian control files¶

Debian control files are files containing multiple stanzas of RFC 822-style header sections. They are widely used in the Debian community, and can represent many kinds of information. One example for such a file is the /var/lib/dpkg/status file which contains a list of the currently installed packages.

The apt_pkg module provides two classes to read those files and parts thereof and provides a function RewriteSection() which takes a TagSection() object and sorting information and outputs a sorted section as a string.

class apt_pkg.TagFile(file, bytes: bool = False)¶

An object which represents a typical debian control file. Can be used for Packages, Sources, control, Release, etc.

The file argument shall be a path name or an open file object. The argument bytes specifies whether the file shall be represented using bytes (True) or unicode (False) strings.

It is a context manager that can be used with a with statement or the close() method.

with TagFile(...) as ...:: Use the TagFile as a context manager. This will automatically close the file after the body finished execution.

New in version 1.0.

close()¶: Close the file. It’s recommended to use the context manager instead (that is, the with statement).

New in version 1.0.

It provides two kinds of API which should not be used together:

The first API implements the iterator protocol and should be used whenever possible because it has less side effects than the other one. It may be used e.g. with a for loop:

with apt_pkg.TagFile('/var/lib/dpkg/status') as tagfile:
    for section in tagfile:
        print(section['Package'])

Changed in version 0.7.100: Added support for using gzip files, via gzip.GzipFile or any file containing a compressed gzip stream.

New in version 0.8.5: Added support for using bytes instead of str in Python 3

next()¶

A TagFile is its own iterator. This method is part of the iterator protocol and returns a TagSection object for the next section in the file. If there is no further section, this method raises the StopIteration exception.

From Python 3 on, this method is not available anymore, and the global function next() replaces it.

The second API uses a shared TagSection object which is exposed through the section attribute. This object is modified by calls to step() and jump(). This API provides more control and may use less memory, but is not recommended because it works by modifying one object. It can be used like this:

with apt_pkg.TagFile('/var/lib/dpkg/status') as tagf:
    tagf.step()
    print tagf.section['Package']

step() → bool¶: Step forward to the next section. This simply returns True if OK, and False if there is no section.

offset() → int¶: Return the current offset (in bytes) from the beginning of the file.

jump(offset) → bool¶: Jump back/forward to offset. Use jump(0) to jump to the beginning of the file again. Returns True if a section could be parsed or False if not.

section¶: This is the current TagSection() instance.

class apt_pkg.TagSection(text)¶

Represent a single section of a debian control file.

section[key]: Return the value of the field at key. If key is not available, raise KeyError.

key in section: Return True if section has a key key, else False.

New in version 0.7.100.

bytes() → int¶: The number of bytes in the section.

find(key: str, default: str = '') → str¶: Return the value of the field at the key key if available, else return default.

find_flag(key: str) → bool¶: Find a yes/no value for the key key. An example for such a field is ‘Essential’.

find_raw(key: str, default: str = '') → str¶: Similar to find(), but instead of returning just the value, it returns the complete field consisting of ‘key: value’.

get(key: str, default: str = '')¶: Return the value of the field at the key key if available, else return default.

keys()¶: Return a list of keys in the section.

A function can be rewritten by using tag classes:

Pre-defined ordering for tag sections are:

apt_pkg.REWRITE_PACKAGE_ORDER¶: The order in which the information for binary packages should be rewritten, i.e. the order in which the fields should appear.

apt_pkg.REWRITE_SOURCE_ORDER¶: The order in which the information for source packages should be rewritten, i.e. the order in which the fields should appear.

Before APT 1.1, the function rewrite_section() was used.

apt_pkg.rewrite_section(section: TagSection, order: list, rewrite_list: list) → str¶

Rewrite the section given by ‘section’ using ‘rewrite_list’, and order the fields according to ‘order’.

The parameter ‘order’ is a list object containing the names of the fields in the order they should appear in the rewritten section. apt_pkg.REWRITE_PACKAGE_ORDER and apt_pkg.REWRITE_SOURCE_ORDER are two predefined lists for rewriting package and source sections, respectively

The parameter ‘rewrite_list’ is a list of tuples of the form ‘(tag, newvalue[, renamed_to])’, where ‘tag’ describes the field which should be changed, ‘newvalue’ the value which should be inserted or None to delete the field, and the optional renamed_to can be used to rename the field.

Dependencies¶

apt_pkg.check_dep(pkgver: str, op: str, depver: str) → bool¶

Check that the given requirement is fulfilled; that is, that the version string given by pkg_ver matches the version string dep_ver under the condition specified by the operator ‘dep_op’ (<,<=,=,>=,>).

Return True if pkg_ver matches dep_ver under the condition ‘dep_op’; for example:

>>> apt_pkg.check_dep("1.0", ">=", "1")
True

The following two functions provide the ability to parse dependencies. They use the same format as Version.depends_list_str.

apt_pkg.parse_depends(depends, strip_multiarch=True, architecture)¶

Parse the string depends which contains dependency information as specified in Debian Policy, Section 7.1.

Returns a list. The members of this list are lists themselves and contain one or more tuples in the format (package,version,operation) for every ‘or’-option given, e.g.:

>>> apt_pkg.parse_depends("PkgA (>= VerA) | PkgB (>= VerB)")
[[('PkgA', 'VerA', '>='), ('PkgB', 'VerB', '>=')]]

Note that multiarch dependency information is stripped off by default. You can force the full dependency info (including the multiarch info) by passing “False” as a additional parameter to this function.

You can specify an optional argument architecture that treats the given architecture as the native architecture for purposes of parsing the dependency.

Note

The behavior of this function is different than the behavior of the old function ParseDepends(), because the third field operation uses > instead of >> and < instead of << which is specified in control files.

apt_pkg.parse_src_depends(depends, strip_multiarch=True, architecture)¶

Parse the string depends which contains dependency information as specified in Debian Policy, Section 7.1.

Returns a list. The members of this list are lists themselves and contain one or more tuples in the format (package,version,operation) for every ‘or’-option given, e.g.:

>>> apt_pkg.parse_depends("PkgA (>= VerA) | PkgB (>= VerB)")
[[('PkgA', 'VerA', '>='), ('PkgB', 'VerB', '>=')]]

Furthemore, this function also supports to limit the architectures, as used in e.g. Build-Depends:

>>> apt_pkg.parse_src_depends("a (>= 01) [i386 amd64]")
[[('a', '01', '>=')]]

Note that multiarch dependency information is stripped off by default. You can force the full dependency info (including the multiarch info) by passing “False” as a additional parameter to this function.

You can specify an optional argument architecture that treats the given architecture as the native architecture for purposes of parsing the dependency.

Note

The behavior of this function is different than the behavior of the old function ParseDepends(), because the third field operation uses > instead of >> and < instead of << which is specified in control files.

Configuration and Command-line parsing¶

class apt_pkg.Configuration¶

Provide access to and manipulation of APT’s configuration which is used by many classes and functions in this module to define their behavior. There are options to install recommends, change the root directory and much more. For an (incomplete) list of available options, see the apt.conf(5) manual page.

The most important Configuration object is the one available by the module’s apt_pkg.config attribute. It stores the global configuration which affects the behavior of most functions and is initialized by a call to the function init_config(). While possible, it is generally not needed to create other instances of this class.

For accessing and manipulating the configuration space, objects of this type provide an interface which resembles Python mapping types like dict.

key in conf: Return True if conf has a key key, else False.

conf[key]: Return the value of the option given key key. If it does not exist, raise KeyError.

conf[key] = value: Set the option at key to value.

get(key[, default='']) → str¶: Find the value for the given key and return it. If the given key does not exist, return default instead.

In addition, they provide methods to resemble the interface provided by the C++ class and some more mapping methods which have been enhanced to support some more advanced configuration features:

clear(key: str)¶: Remove the option at key and all of its children.

dump() → str¶: Return a string containing the values in the configuration object, in the standard apt.conf(5) format.

New in version 0.7.100.

exists(key)¶: Check whether an option named key exists in the configuration.

find(key[, default='']) → str¶: Return the value stored at the option named key, or the value given by the string default if the option in question is not set.

find_b(key[, default=False]) → bool¶: Return the boolean value stored at key, or the value given by the bool object default if the requested option is not set.

find_file(key[, default='']) → str¶

find_dir(key[, default='/']) → str¶

Locate the given key using find() and return the path to the file/directory. This uses a special algorithms which moves upwards in the configuration space and prepends the values of the options to the result. These methods are generally used for the options stored in the ‘Dir’ section of the configuration.

As an example of how this works, take a look at the following options and their values:

Option	Value
Dir	/
Dir::Etc	etc/apt/
Dir::Etc::main	apt.conf

A call to find_file() would now return /etc/apt/apt.conf because it prepends the values of “Dir::Etc” and “Dir” to the value of “Dir::Etc::main”:

>>> apt_pkg.config.find_file("Dir::Etc::main")
'/etc/apt/apt.conf'

If the special configuration variable “RootDir” is set, this value would be prepended to every return value, even if the path is already absolute. If not, the function ends as soon as an absolute path is created (once an option with a value starting with “/” is read).

The method find_dir() does exactly the same thing as find_file(), but adds a trailing forward slash before returning the value.

find_i(key[, default=0]) → int¶: Return the integer value stored at key, or the value given by the integer default if the requested option is not set.

keys([key])¶: Return a recursive list of all configuration options or, if key is given, a list of all its children. This method is comparable to the keys method of a mapping object, but additionally provides the parameter key.

list([key])¶: Return a non-recursive list of all configuration options. If key is not given, this returns a list of options like “Apt”, “Dir”, and similar. If key is given, a list of the names of its child options will be returned instead.

my_tag()¶: Return the tag name of the current tree. Normally (for apt_pkg.config) this is an empty string, but for sub-trees it is the key of the sub-tree.

set(key: str, value: str)¶: Set the option named key to the value given by the argument value. It is possible to store objects of the types int and bool by calling str() on them to convert them to a string object. They can then be retrieved again by using the methods find_i() or find_b().

subtree(key)¶

Return a new apt_pkg.Configuration object which starts at the given option. Example:

apttree = config.subtree('APT')
apttree['Install-Suggests'] = config['APT::Install-Suggests']

The configuration space is shared with the main object which means that all modifications in one object appear in the other one as well.

value_list([key])¶: This is the opposite of the list() method in that it returns the values instead of the option names.

apt_pkg.config¶: This variable contains the global configuration which is used by all classes and functions in this module. After importing the module, this object should be initialized by calling the module’s init_config() function.

apt_pkg.read_config_file(configuration: Configuration, filename: str)¶: Read the configuration file filename and set the appropriate options in the configuration object configuration.

apt_pkg.read_config_dir(configuration, dirname)¶: Read all configuration files in the dir given by ‘dirname’ in the correct order.

apt_pkg.read_config_file_isc(configuration, filename)¶: Read the configuration file filename and set the appropriate options in the configuration object configuration. This function requires a slightly different format than APT configuration files, if you are unsure, do not use it.

apt_pkg.parse_commandline(configuration, options, argv)¶

Parse the command line in argv into the configuration space. The list options contains a list of 3-tuples or 4-tuples in the form:

(short_option: str, long_option: str, variable: str[, type: str])

The element short_option is one character, the long_option element is the name of the long option, the element variable the name of the configuration option the result will be stored in and type is one of ‘HasArg’, ‘IntLevel’, ‘Boolean’, ‘InvBoolean’, ‘ConfigFile’, ‘ArbItem’. The default type is ‘Boolean’.

Overview of all possible types¶
Type	What happens if the option is given
HasArg	The argument given to the option is stored in the target.
IntLevel	The integer value in the target is increased by one
Boolean	The target variable is set to True.
InvBoolean	The target variable is set to False.
ConfigFile	The file given as an argument to this option is read in and all configuration options are added to the configuration object (APT’s ‘-c’ option).
ArbItem	The option takes an argument key=value, and the configuration option at key is set to the value value (APT’s ‘-o’ option).

Locking¶

When working on the global cache, it is important to lock the cache so other programs do not modify it. This module provides two context managers for locking the package system or file-based locking.

class apt_pkg.SystemLock¶

Context manager for locking the package system. The lock is established as soon as the method __enter__() is called. It is released when __exit__() is called. If the lock can not be acquired or can not be released an exception is raised.

This should be used via the ‘with’ statement. For example:

with apt_pkg.SystemLock():
    ... # Do your stuff here.
... # Now it's unlocked again

Once the block is left, the lock is released automatically. The object can be used multiple times:

lock = apt_pkg.SystemLock()
with lock:
    ...
with lock:
    ...

class apt_pkg.FileLock(filename: str)¶

Context manager for locking using a file. The lock is established as soon as the method __enter__() is called. It is released when __exit__() is called. If the lock can not be acquired or can not be released, an exception is raised.

This should be used via the ‘with’ statement. For example:

with apt_pkg.FileLock(filename):
    ...

Once the block is left, the lock is released automatically. The object can be used multiple times:

lock = apt_pkg.FileLock(filename)
with lock:
    ...
with lock:
    ...

For Python versions prior to 2.5, similar functionality is provided by the following three functions:

apt_pkg.get_lock(filename: str, errors=False) → int¶

Create an empty file at the path specified by the parameter filename and lock it. If this fails and errors is True, the function raises an error. If errors is False, the function returns -1.

The lock can be acquired multiple times within the same process, and can be released by calling os.close() on the return value which is the file descriptor of the created file.

apt_pkg.pkgsystem_lock()¶: Lock the global pkgsystem. The lock should be released by calling pkgsystem_unlock() again. If this function is called n-times, the pkgsystem_unlock() function must be called n-times as well to release all acquired locks.

apt_pkg.pkgsystem_unlock()¶: Unlock the global pkgsystem. This reverts the effect of pkgsystem_lock().

Other classes¶

class apt_pkg.Cdrom¶

A Cdrom object identifies Debian installation media and adds them to /etc/apt/sources.list. The C++ version of this class is used by the apt-cdrom tool and using this class, you can re-implement apt-cdrom in Python, see Writing your own apt-cdrom.

The class apt.cdrom.Cdrom is a subclass of this class and provides some additional functionality for higher level use and some shortcuts for setting some related configuration options.

This class provides two functions which take an instance of apt.progress.base.CdromProgress as their argument.

add(progress: apt.progress.base.CdromProgress) → bool¶: Search for a Debian installation media and add it to the list of sources stored in /etc/apt/sources.list. On success, the boolean value True is returned. If the process failed or was canceled by the progress class, SystemError is raised or False is returned.

ident(progress: apt.progress.base.CdromProgress) → str¶: Identify the installation media and return a string which describes its identity. If no media could be identified, SystemError is raised or None is returned.

class apt_pkg.SourceList¶

Represent the list of sources stored in files such as /etc/apt/sources.list.

find_index(pkgfile: PackageFile) → IndexFile¶: Return the IndexFile object for the PackageFile object given by the argument pkgfile. If no index could be found, return None.

get_indexes(acquire: Acquire[, all: bool = False]) → bool¶: Add all indexes to the Acquire object given by the argument acquire. If all is True, all indexes will be added, otherwise only the meta indexes (Release files) will be added and others are fetched as needed.

read_main_list() → bool¶: Read the files configured in Dir::Etc::SourceList and Dir::Etc::sourceparts; that is (on normal system), /etc/apt/sources.list and the files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d.

list¶: A list of MetaIndex objects.

String functions¶

apt_pkg.base64_encode(value: bytes) → str¶

Encode the given bytes string (which may not contain a null byte) using base64, for example, on Python 3 and newer:

>>> apt_pkg.base64_encode(b"A")
'QQ=='

on Python versions prior to 3, the ‘b’ before the string has to be omitted.

apt_pkg.check_domain_list(host, list)¶

See if the host name given by host is one of the domains given in the comma-separated list list or a subdomain of one of them.

>>> apt_pkg.check_domain_list("alioth.debian.org","debian.net,debian.org")
True

apt_pkg.dequote_string(string: str)¶

Dequote the string specified by the parameter string, e.g.:

>>> apt_pkg.dequote_string("%61%70%74%20is%20cool")
'apt is cool'

apt_pkg.quote_string(string, repl)¶

Escape the string string, replacing any character not allowed in a URL or specified by repl with its ASCII value preceded by a percent sign (so for example ‘ ‘ becomes ‘%20’).

>>> apt_pkg.quote_string("apt is cool","apt")
'%61%70%74%20is%20cool'

apt_pkg.size_to_str(size: int)¶

Return a string describing the size in a human-readable manner using SI prefix and base-10 units, e.g. ‘1k’ for 1000, ‘1M’ for 1000000, etc.

Example:

>>> apt_pkg.size_to_str(10000)
'10.0k'

apt_pkg.string_to_bool(input)¶

Parse the string input and return one of -1, 0, 1.

Return values¶
Value	Meaning
-1	The string input is not recognized.
0	The string input evaluates to False.
+1	The string input evaluates to True.

Example:

>>> apt_pkg.string_to_bool("yes")
1
>>> apt_pkg.string_to_bool("no")
0
>>> apt_pkg.string_to_bool("not-recognized")
-1

apt_pkg.str_to_time(rfc_time)¶

Convert the RFC 1123 conforming string rfc_time to the unix time, and return the integer. This is the opposite of TimeRFC1123().

Example:

>> apt_pkg.str_to_time('Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT')
0

apt_pkg.time_rfc1123(seconds: int) → str¶

Format the unix time specified by the integer seconds, according to the requirements of RFC 1123.

Example:

>>> apt_pkg.time_rfc1123(0)
'Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT'

apt_pkg.time_to_str(seconds: int) → str¶

Format a given duration in a human-readable manner. The parameter seconds refers to a number of seconds, given as an integer. The return value is a string with a unit like ‘s’ for seconds.

Example:

>>> apt_pkg.time_to_str(3601)
'1h0min1s'

apt_pkg.upstream_version(version: str) → str¶: Return the upstream version for the Debian package version given by version.

apt_pkg.uri_to_filename(uri: str) → str¶

Take a string uri as parameter and return a filename which can be used to store the file, based on the URI.

Example:

>>> apt_pkg.uri_to_filename('http://debian.org/index.html')
'debian.org_index.html'

apt_pkg.version_compare(a: str, b: str) → int¶

Compare two versions, a and b, and return an integer value which has the same meaning as the built-in cmp() function’s return value has, see the following table for details.

Return values¶
Value	Meaning
> 0	The version a is greater than version b.
= 0	Both versions are equal.
< 0	The version a is less than version b.

Module Constants¶

Package States¶

apt_pkg.CURSTATE_CONFIG_FILES¶: Only the configuration files of the package exist on the system.

apt_pkg.CURSTATE_HALF_CONFIGURED¶: The package is unpacked and configuration has been started, but not yet completed.

apt_pkg.CURSTATE_HALF_INSTALLED¶: The installation of the package has been started, but not completed.

apt_pkg.CURSTATE_INSTALLED¶: The package is unpacked, configured and OK.

apt_pkg.CURSTATE_NOT_INSTALLED¶: The package is not installed.

apt_pkg.CURSTATE_UNPACKED¶: The package is unpacked, but not configured.

Installed states¶

apt_pkg.INSTSTATE_HOLD¶: The package is put on hold.

apt_pkg.INSTSTATE_HOLD_REINSTREQ¶: The package is put on hold, but broken and has to be reinstalled.

apt_pkg.INSTSTATE_OK¶: The package is OK.

apt_pkg.INSTSTATE_REINSTREQ¶: The package is broken and has to be reinstalled.

Priorities¶

apt_pkg.PRI_EXTRA¶: The integer representation of the priority ‘extra’.

apt_pkg.PRI_IMPORTANT¶: The integer representation of the priority ‘important’.

apt_pkg.PRI_OPTIONAL¶: The integer representation of the priority ‘optional’.

apt_pkg.PRI_REQUIRED¶: The integer representation of the priority ‘required’.

apt_pkg.PRI_STANDARD¶: The integer representation of the priority ‘standard’.

Package selection states¶

apt_pkg.SELSTATE_DEINSTALL¶: The package is selected for deinstallation.

apt_pkg.SELSTATE_HOLD¶: The package is marked to be on hold and will not be modified.

apt_pkg.SELSTATE_INSTALL¶: The package is selected for installation.

apt_pkg.SELSTATE_PURGE¶: The package is selected to be purged.

apt_pkg.SELSTATE_UNKNOWN¶: The package is in an unknown state.

Build information¶

apt_pkg.DATE¶: The date on which this extension has been compiled.

apt_pkg.LIB_VERSION¶: The version of the apt_pkg library. This is not the version of apt, nor the version of python-apt.

apt_pkg.TIME¶: The time this extension has been built.

apt_pkg.VERSION¶: The version of apt (not of python-apt).

`apt_pkg` — The low-level bindings for apt-pkg¶

Module Initialization¶

Exceptions¶

Working with the cache¶

Managing the cache with `DepCache`¶

Installing with `PackageManager`¶

Installation ordering with `OrderList`¶

Improve performance with `ActionGroup`¶

Resolving Dependencies with `ProblemResolver`¶

`Group` of packages with the same name¶

`Package` information¶

Example:¶

`Version`¶

`Dependency`¶

Example: Find all missing dependencies¶

`Description`¶

Package Pinning with `Policy`¶

Index Files¶

Records (Release files, Packages, Sources)¶

The Acquire interface¶

Hashes¶

Debian control files¶

Dependencies¶

Configuration and Command-line parsing¶

Locking¶

Other classes¶

String functions¶

Module Constants¶

Package States¶

Installed states¶

Priorities¶

Package selection states¶

Build information¶

Table Of Contents

Related Topics

This Page

apt_pkg — The low-level bindings for apt-pkg¶

Module Initialization¶

Exceptions¶

Working with the cache¶

Managing the cache with DepCache¶

Installing with PackageManager¶

Installation ordering with OrderList¶

Improve performance with ActionGroup¶

Resolving Dependencies with ProblemResolver¶

Group of packages with the same name¶

Package information¶

Example:¶

Version¶

Dependency¶

Example: Find all missing dependencies¶

Description¶

Package Pinning with Policy¶

Index Files¶

Records (Release files, Packages, Sources)¶

The Acquire interface¶

Hashes¶

Debian control files¶

Dependencies¶

Configuration and Command-line parsing¶

Locking¶

Other classes¶

String functions¶

Module Constants¶

Package States¶

Installed states¶

Priorities¶

Package selection states¶

Build information¶

`apt_pkg` — The low-level bindings for apt-pkg¶

Managing the cache with `DepCache`¶

Installing with `PackageManager`¶

Installation ordering with `OrderList`¶

Improve performance with `ActionGroup`¶

Resolving Dependencies with `ProblemResolver`¶

`Group` of packages with the same name¶

`Package` information¶

`Version`¶

`Dependency`¶

`Description`¶

Package Pinning with `Policy`¶