List of files installed from apt package

Question

How do I get a list of files that were or will-be installed when I apt-get a package? Conversely, can I find what package(s) caused a particular file to be installed?

Answer 1

Note: in the following commands, a command beginning with 'root#' means it needs to be run as root.

To find which files were installed by a package, use dpkg -L:

$ dpkg -L $package

apt-file can tell you which files will be installed by a package before installing it:

root# apt-get install apt-file
root# apt-file update
$ apt-file list $package

Or if you have the package as a .deb file locally already, you can run dpkg on it:

$ dpkg --contents $package.deb

To find which package provides a file that is already on your system, use:

$ dpkg -S /path/to/file

To find which package provides a file that is not currently on your system, use apt-file again:

$ apt-file search /path/to/file

Answer 2

dpkg -S /path/to/file/in/question

As far as I'm concerned, dpkg is the low-level tool that apt-get depends on.

Answer 3

If you have installed dlocate, you can use dlocate -L the same way as dpkg -L. It works exactly the same in this case, but has a number of other options.