On Mon, 13 Oct 2025, Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Mon, Oct 13, 2025 at 13:07:37 +0000, [email protected] wrote: >> On Mon, 13 Oct 2025, Greg Wooledge wrote: >> >>> On Mon, Oct 13, 2025 at 12:43:13 +0000, [email protected] wrote: >>>> apt list ~e^science >>>> >>>> how can i see the details of what is being searched and how >>> >>> man apt-patterns >>> >>> ?source-package(REGEX), ~eREGEX >>> Selects versions where the source package name matches the >>> specified >>> regular expression. >>> >>> man 7 regex >>> >>> '^' (matching the null string at the beginning of a line) >>> >> >> >> i've read that several times >> i don't see anything that tells me the details of how apt is performing the >> search > > I don't understand what you're asking. > > ~e means the rest of it is a regex (regular expression) which is matched > against the source package name. (It would be nice if it specified > which flavor of regex it's using, because there are many.) > > ^science is a regex that matches any string/line beginning with the > substring "science". (At least in BRE, ERE and PCRE flavors.) > > So, putting it together, it should match all packages whose source package > name begins with "science". > > When I run it on my system, I get the following result: > > hobbit:~$ apt list '~e^science' > ESC[32mlibjs-sciencejsESC[0m/stable,stable 1.9.3+dfsg-4 all > > This package is not installed, so it seems it's looking at available > packages. This is the package it's referring to: > > hobbit:~$ apt-cache show libjs-sciencejs > Package: libjs-sciencejs > Source: science.js > Version: 1.9.3+dfsg-4 > [...] > > As you can see, its source package name is "science.js" which does in > fact begin with "science". So, it looks like it's working as documented. >
apt list ~e^science is an example not what i'm interested in i'm interested in the details of how apt go about doing whatever it's doing
