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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><title>Search patterns</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="aptitude.css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets Vsnapshot" /><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="aptitude user's manual" /><link rel="up" href="ch02.html" title="Chapter 2. aptitude reference guide" /><link rel="prev" href="ch02s03s05.html" title="Configuring the interactive dependency resolver" /><link rel="next" href="ch02s04s01.html" title="Searching for strings" /><link rel="preface" href="pr01.html" title="Introduction" /><link rel="chapter" href="ch01.html" title="Chapter 1. Getting started" /><link rel="chapter" href="ch02.html" title="Chapter 2. aptitude reference guide" /><link rel="chapter" href="ch03.html" title="Chapter 3. aptitude frequently asked questions" /><link rel="chapter" href="ch04.html" title="Chapter 4. Credits" /><link rel="reference" href="rn01.html" title="Command-line reference" /><link rel="refentry" href="rn01re01.html" title="aptitude" /><link rel="refentry" href="rn01re02.html" title="aptitude-create-state-bundle" /><link rel="refentry" href="rn01re03.html" title="aptitude-run-state-bundle" /><link rel="subsection" href="ch02s04s01.html" title="Searching for strings" /><link rel="subsection" href="ch02s04s02.html" title="Shorthand for search terms" /><link rel="subsection" href="ch02s04s03.html" title="Searches and versions" /><link rel="subsection" href="ch02s04s04.html" title="Explicit search targets" /><link rel="subsection" href="ch02s04s05.html" title="Search term reference" /></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Search patterns</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch02s03s05.html"><img src="images/prev.gif" alt="Prev" /></a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 2. <span class="command"><strong>aptitude</strong></span> reference guide</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch02s04s01.html"><img src="images/next.gif" alt="Next" /></a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="secSearchPatterns"></a>Search patterns</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch02s04s01.html">Searching for strings</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch02s04s02.html">Shorthand for search terms</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch02s04s03.html">Searches and versions</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch02s04s04.html">Explicit search targets</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch02s04s05.html">Search term reference</a></span></dt></dl></div><p>
	When you search for a package or set a display limit in
	<span class="command"><strong>aptitude</strong></span>, the string you enter is known as a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">search
	pattern</span>”</span>.  While the most basic usage of search
	patterns is to match packages by name, <span class="command"><strong>aptitude</strong></span> allows you
	to create much more complex searches.  In addition to the
	visual interface, some command-line operations can use search
	patterns; see <a class="xref" href="rn01.html" title="Command-line reference">Command-line reference</a> for details.
      </p><p>
	A search pattern consists of one or more conditions (sometimes
	known as <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">terms</span>”</span>); packages match the pattern if
	they match all of its terms.  Terms generally start with a
	question mark (<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">?</span>”</span>), followed by the name of the
	match term, which describes the search that the term performs:
	for instance, the term <code class="literal"><a class="link" href="ch02s04s05.html#searchTermName">?name</a></code> matches package names, while
	the term <code class="literal"><a class="link" href="ch02s04s05.html#searchTermVersion">?version</a></code> matches package versions.  Finally, any
	additional parameters to the search term are placed in
	parentheses (see the documentation of individual terms for
	details of what each term's parameters mean).
      </p><div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><table border="0" summary="Note"><tr><td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25"><img alt="[Note]" src="images/note.png" /></td><th align="left">Note</th></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><p>
	  Text with no leading <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">?</span>”</span> also forms a search
	  pattern: <span class="command"><strong>aptitude</strong></span> will treat each word (or quoted string)
	  as the argument to a <code class="literal"><a class="link" href="ch02s04s05.html#searchTermName">?name</a></code> pattern, which searches for a
	  package whose name matches the text when the text is
	  interpreted as a regular expression.
	</p></td></tr></table></div><div class="warning" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><table border="0" summary="Warning"><tr><td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25"><img alt="[Warning]" src="images/warning.png" /></td><th align="left">Warning</th></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><p>
	  The behavior of <span class="command"><strong>aptitude</strong></span> when given a search pattern without
	  a leading <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">?</span>”</span> (or <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">~</span>”</span>) is provided
	  as a convenience for interactive use and will change in
	  future releases; scripts that invoke
	  <code class="literal">aptitude</code> should explicitly name the
	  search strategy they want to use.  That is, scripts should
	  search for <span class="quote">“<span class="quote"><code class="literal"><code class="literal"><a class="link" href="ch02s04s05.html#searchTermName">?name</a></code>(coq)</code></span>”</span>
	  rather than <span class="quote">“<span class="quote"><code class="literal">coq</code></span>”</span>).
	</p></td></tr></table></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch02s03s05.html"><img src="images/prev.gif" alt="Prev" /></a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="ch02.html"><img src="images/up.gif" alt="Up" /></a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch02s04s01.html"><img src="images/next.gif" alt="Next" /></a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Configuring the interactive dependency resolver </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html"><img src="images/home.gif" alt="Home" /></a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Searching for strings</td></tr></table></div></body></html>

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