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maP1E bluE avatar Ubuntu

Why does apt-cache search have wrong output?

au flag
maP1E bluE 
root@ubuntu:~# apt-cache search -n ^linux- |grep -v ^linux-
busybox-syslogd - Provides syslogd and klogd using busybox
initramfs-tools - generic modular initramfs generator (automation)
rsyslog - reliable system and kernel logging daemon
dracut - dracut is an event driven initramfs infrastructure
inetutils-syslogd - system logging daemon
socklog-run - system and kernel logging services
syslog-ng-core - Enhanced system logging daemon (core)
tiny-initramfs - Minimalistic initramfs implementation (automation)
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apt
hr flag
steeldriver
I don't know why this is getting downvoted - it seems that even with `--names-only` and proper quoting of `'^linux'` to eliminate possible shell globbing, it returns such results
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muru avatar
us flag
muru
@steeldriver probably because it says in the manpage: "It searches the package names and **the descriptions** for an occurrence of the regular expression". If OP got far enough to know `apt-cache search` uses regexes, well...
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maP1E bluE avatar
au flag
maP1E bluE
@muru I always use apt search before, apt said it does not have a stable CLI interface so I tried apt-cache search and I didn't expect that names-only behave differently
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guiverc avatar
cn flag
guiverc
Please provide a question... Your "question" is just a paste without any description or actual question. Depending on device or browser used to read this site, the title text may not be viewable when the page is opened & your question is read - your question being just a paste without any explanation, thus making no sense.
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Score:2
avatar Ubuntu
hr flag
steeldriver

The answer seems to be that even with the addition of --names-only, the apt-cache search command searches the packages' provided packages. From man apt-cache:

   search regex...
       search performs a full text search on all available package lists
       for the POSIX regex pattern given, see regex(7). It searches the
       package names and the descriptions for an occurrence of the regular
       expression and prints out the package name and the short
       description, including virtual package names. If --full is given
       then output identical to show is produced for each matched package,
       and if --names-only is given then the long description is not
       searched, only the package name and provided packages are.

We can see exactly what the search is matching as follows:

$ apt-cache search --names-only '^linux-' | grep -v '^linux-' |
    while read -r pkg rem; do apt-cache show "$pkg" | grep -H --label="$pkg" '^Provides:'; done
busybox-syslogd:Provides: linux-kernel-log-daemon, system-log-daemon
busybox-syslogd:Provides: linux-kernel-log-daemon, system-log-daemon
busybox-syslogd:Provides: linux-kernel-log-daemon, system-log-daemon
initramfs-tools:Provides: linux-initramfs-tool
initramfs-tools:Provides: linux-initramfs-tool
initramfs-tools:Provides: linux-initramfs-tool
rsyslog:Provides: linux-kernel-log-daemon, system-log-daemon
rsyslog:Provides: linux-kernel-log-daemon, system-log-daemon
dracut:Provides: linux-initramfs-tool
inetutils-syslogd:Provides: linux-kernel-log-daemon, system-log-daemon
socklog-run:Provides: linux-kernel-log-daemon, system-log-daemon
syslog-ng-core:Provides: libsyslog-ng-dev, linux-kernel-log-daemon, syslog-ng-mod-journal, system-log-daemon
tiny-initramfs:Provides: linux-initramfs-tool
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