madison-lite(1)

NAME

     madison-lite --- display versions of Debian packages in an archive

SYNOPSIS

     madison-lite [--config-file file] [--mirror directory] [--nocache]
              [--update] [-S] [-r] [-a architecture[,...]]
              [-c component[,...]] [-s suite[,...]] package [...]

DESCRIPTION

     madison-lite inspects a local Debian package archive and displays the
     versions of the given packages found in each suite (for example, stable,
     testing, or unstable) in a brief but easily human-readable form.  It aims
     to be a drop-in replacement for the madison utility (since renamed to dak
     ls), from the dak archive management suite that runs on the central
     Debian archive systems, but one which can run without access to the
     archive's SQL database.

     The following options are available:

     --config-file file
       Read configuration from file, and ignore the system configuration
       file (see CONFIGURATION below).

     --mirror directory
       Quick configuration: use directory as the top level of the Debian
       mirror.

     --nocache
       Normally, parts of the Packages and Sources files in the archive
       are cached in ~/.madison-lite/cache for speed.  This option
       disables that behaviour.

     --update
       Force caches of Packages and Sources files to be updated.

     -S, --source-and-binary
       Interpret package as a source package name, and display versions of
       any associated binary packages as well as of the source package.

     -r, --regex
       Interpret package as a Perl regular expression anchored at the
       start of the package name rather than as an exact name.  Make sure
       to quote any shell metacharacters such as '*' or '?' if necessary.

     -a, --architecture architecture[,...]
       Display only entries for packages built for these architectures.
       Separate multiple architectures with commas or spaces.

     -c, --component component[,...]
       Display only entries in the given components.  Separate multiple
       components with commas or spaces.

     -s, --suite suite[,...]
       Display only entries in the given suites.  Separate multiple suites
       with commas or spaces.

CONFIGURATION

     madison-lite reads configuration information from the file named by
     --config-file, or, if that is not supplied, from the first of
     ~/.madison-lite/config and /etc/madison-lite/config that exists.

     The following configuration directives are recognized:

     mirror directory
       Set the top-level directory of the local Debian mirror.  Relative
       directories in the suite directive are interpreted relative to this
       directory.  Defaults to the current directory.

     suite name directory [component [...]]
       Defines the suite name based at directory, containing the specified
       components (defaulting to all subdirectories of directory).  Output
       is displayed following the order of suite directives in the
       configuration file.  If no suite directives are present, then every
       subdirectory of the dists directory under mirror is treated as a
       suite, with all of their subdirectories as components.

       The Debian archive is structured such that the subdirectories of
       each suite directory identify components (such as main).  Each of
       those in turn has subdirectories for each architecture
       (binary-i386, and so on), each of which contains any or all of
       Packages, Packages.gz, Packages.bz2, and Packages.xz files listing
       binary packages; it also has a subdirectory called source which
       contains any or all of Sources, Sources.gz, Sources.bz2, and
       Sources.xz files listing source packages.

     The configuration file may contain comment lines, which start with a '#'
     character.

EXAMPLES

     Show versions of the coreutils package:

       $ madison-lite coreutils

     Show versions of all binary packages on powerpc produced by the glibc
     source package:

       $ madison-lite -S -a powerpc glibc

     Show versions of all packages in the unstable suite whose names begin
     with 'man':

       $ madison-lite -s unstable -r 'man.*'

     An example configuration file for a simple local mirror:

       mirror /mirror/debian
       suite unstable dists/unstable main
       suite unstable-non-US non-US/dists/unstable non-US/main

SEE ALSO

     dpkg-scanpackages(8), dpkg-scansources(8), apt-ftparchive(1)

AUTHORS

     madison-lite was written by Colin Watson [email protected].  The
     interface mirrors that of madison (since renamed to dak ls), written by
     James Troup.

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