> > Hi, > How do I know if the package is no longer dependent by others? > > for example, if I have a lib-blah package installed, and I want to know > if there are any other packages installed on my system that depends on > this package. > > I don't want to try to remove it though.
This information is available in /var/lib/dpkg/status. You can get it out with the little sh script I called `debquery' which is attached below. I donate this sophisticated piece of software engineering to the debian community :) You can ask for any field you like: # default is the Depends field $ debquery xlib6 xaw95 xview tk42 xquake lesstif # other fields are possible: $ debquery Suggests gnuplot octave `debquery Status installed' would give you all installed packages, but, unlike `dpkg -l' not cut off longer package names. You need /bin/sh and `ex' installed for the script to work. HTH, Eric -- E.L. Meijer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Eindhoven Univ. of Technology Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (SKA) ------ Cut here and save as `debquery' --------------------------------- #! /bin/sh # # This software may be distributed under the GPL. # I like to call it `debquery' # # (C) Eric Meijer, 1999 # if [ $# -lt 1 ] || [ $# -gt 2 ]; then echo usage: $0 \[\<field\>\] \<debian package\> echo "field can be one of the following:" echo "Depends (the default), Suggests, Conflicts, or any other" echo "field found (or even not found :) in the status file" exit fi if [ $# = 1 ]; then FIELD=Depends PACKAGE=$1 else FIELD=$1 PACKAGE=$2 fi STATUSFILE=/var/lib/dpkg/status ex $STATUSFILE << _EOF_ | cut -d: -f2 g/^$FIELD:.*\<$PACKAGE\>/ ?Package? p _EOF_
