Dear Maintainer,


I attempted to list files for a package (libsqlite3-0) in a specific
architecture (i386).

Specifying it on the format used for apt-get yields no output from apt-file:
  apt-file list libsqlite3-0:i386

Instead, apt-file requires a separate --architecture argument:
  apt-file --architecture i386 list libsqlite3-0

It would be nice if apt-file supported the package:architecture way of
specifying a specific architecture.


Regards,
ampleyfly

This really should work. It's maybe sorta ok for "apt-file list", but it
also affects "apt-file find". Look:

  dima@fatty:~$ apt-file find /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libOpenCL.so


  dima@fatty:~$ apt-file -aarm64 find /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libOpenCL.so

  nvidia-libopencl1: /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libOpenCL.so.1
  nvidia-libopencl1: /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libOpenCL.so.1.0.0
  ocl-icd-libopencl1: /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libOpenCL.so.1
  ocl-icd-libopencl1: /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libOpenCL.so.1.0.0
  ocl-icd-opencl-dev: /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libOpenCL.so

I.e. I asked it to tell me what package provides a file, and I had to
tell it which architecture to look at.

The whole point of apt-file is to look up the package name from a path,
and if I have to tell IT things like the architecture, it loses a lot of
its utility.

Thanks.

Dima Kogan:

Hi Dima,

 From my PoV, what you experience here with find is a complete different
problem.

By default, apt-file uses the `APT::Architectures` configuration
variable to determine which architectures to search for[1].  If APT's
default is not correct here and you do not APT to see arm64, then please
add the corrected `APT::Architectures` to `/etc/apt/apt-file.conf`.  If
you feel that `-a` should have a different default, then please file a
separate bug.
   Also, MRs or patches are welcome to improve the documentation if you
want to contribute to making apt-file better for the next person! :)

I hope that solves your particular issue.

Thanks,
Niels

[1]: You can use `apt-config dump | grep Architectures` to see the
default value that apt-file would get.

Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net> writes:

Well yeah. I totally get that this is what it's doing, I'm just
unconvinced that it should be doing this.

I can give you patches, but let's agree on what the patch should do
before I do any work.

apt-cache has databases for every enabled architecture. So the proposal
is to search ALL of them and report ALL the results. If the user wants
to limit the search, they can pass -a or grep the output, or whatever.

Would you accept such a patch?

Thanks for working on apt-file!