This is the default behavior of qfile. It will list the packages which own the files (or directories, or symlinks, or anything else Portage can install) you are querying. Query items may be file paths or simple file names when the -b option is used. By default, output includes packages names and the complete paths to the matching files. If using --exact, versions of the packages will also be shown. At the contrary, when using --quiet, only package names are listed, without files paths. Finally, --verbose is similar to --exact, but may add a few warnings. The return status of qfile will be 0 as soon as an owning package has been found for one of the query items.
Find names of package(s) owning "/bin/bash":
$ qfile -q /bin/bash
app-shells/bash
Find package(s) owning any file named "bash", and show paths of this files:
$ qfile -b bash
app-shells/bash (/bin/bash)
app-shells/bash (/etc/bash)
Find packages(s) owning the file named "bash" in the current directory. Also display their exact version:
$ cd /bin
$ qfile -e ./bash
app-shells/bash-3.1_p17 (/bin/bash)
Find the package(s) owning the libraries needed by the Bash binary:
$ qfile $(scanelf -nq -F%n#F /bin/bash | tr , '\n')
sys-libs/ncurses (/lib/libncurses.so.5)
sys-libs/glibc (/lib/libdl.so.2)
sys-libs/glibc (/lib/libc.so.6)
qfile can also, with the --orphans option, find files which are not owned by any package. This behavior is the opposite of the usual file owner search: the output is the list of query items for which no reference has been found in your installed packages database. The --exact option has no effect in this mode, whereas --verbose may add a few warning messages. As for --quiet, it will completly turn off the output, leaving just a silent test command, which returns 0 if and only if there was no orphan in your query items.
Find the orphan libtool files of your system:
$ qfile -o $(find /lib /usr/lib -name "*.la")
/usr/lib/libGL.la
Find the libraries needed by the binary "foo" which have not been installed by any package:
$ qfile -o $(scanelf -nq -F%n#F /path/to/foo | tr , '\n')
libinstalledmanually.so.2
By setting the ROOT environment variable, you can force qfile to work in the sytem of your choice. This example shows queries for owner of "/bin/sh", first on your main system, and then on a system mounted on "/mnt":
$ qfile -q /bin/sh
app-shells/bash
$ ROOT=/mnt qfile -q /bin/sh
sys-apps/busybox
Note that the query item is "/bin/sh" in both commands: by default, what qfile looks for is file paths as they are recorded in the packages database of the target system, and this paths don't include $ROOT. If, at the contrary, you want to query files with their current actual paths (including the mount point), you should add the --root-prefix (-R) option:
$ ROOT=/mnt qfile -Rq /mnt/bin/sh
sys-apps/busybox
The other difference beetween defaults and -R queries is the output of files paths. The former doesn't include the $ROOT prefix, and the later does:
$ ROOT=/mnt qfile sh
sys-apps/busybox (/bin/sh)
$ ROOT=/mnt qfile -R sh
sys-apps/busybox (/mnt/bin/sh)
Sure, the same differences hold when querying for orphan files:
$ ROOT=/mnt qfile -o $(ls /mnt/bin/ | sed 's:^/mnt::')
/bin/dostuff.sh
$ ROOT=/mnt qfile -Ro /mnt/bin/*
/mnt/bin/dostuff.sh
A last option of qfile is --exclude (-x), which will makes it skip one particular package when doing its files owners search. This option takes one argument, which can be a package name (bash or app-shells/bash), or a versioned package (bash-3.2_p9-r1 or app-shells/bash-3.2_p9-r1), or a slotted package (bash:0 or app-shells/bash:0). It is useful for finding file collisions beetween packages (ie., comparing the contents of one package with the contents of all the others).
For example, the following script will search collisions between all your installed packages. Be careful, this will takes time:
#!/bin/bash
cd $(portageq vdb_path)
for pkg in *-*/*-* ; do
[[ -f ${pkg}/CONTENTS ]] || continue
collisions=$(sed -n \
'/^obj\|^sym/s:^... \([^ ]\+\).*:1:p' \
${pkg}/CONTENTS \
| qfile -e -x ${pkg} -f -)
[[ -n ${collisions} ]] \
&& echo ">>> ${pkg}:" \
&& echo "${collisions}"
done
An other example is the following script, which can be used to check that a binary package (.tbz2) has no conflict with any of your installed packages, but the one it may replace (same name and slot), if any:
#!/bin/bash
pkgver=$(basename "${1}")
pkgver=${pkgver%%.tbz2}
pn=$(qatom ${pkgver} | cut -d\ -f2)
tmpdir=$(mktemp -t -d) || exit 1
tarbz2=${tmpdir}/${pkgver}.tar.bz2
xpak=${tmpdir}/${pkgver}.xpak
qtbz2 -s "${1}" "${tarbz2}" "${xpak}"
categ=$(qxpak -O -x "${xpak}" CATEGORY)
slot=$(qxpak -O -x "${xpak}" SLOT)
tar tjf "${tarbz2}" \
| sed -e 's:^\./:/:' -e '\:/$:d' \
| qfile -e -f - -x ${categ}/${pn}:${slot}
rm -rf "${tmpdir}"
Ned Ludd <solar@gentoo.org> Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> Fabian Groffen <grobian@gentoo.org> TGL <degrenier[at]easyconnect.fr>