Starting from @derobert's answer, I worked my way to getting exactly the current version of all packages to reinstall.
Short version:
sudo dpkg -l | grep '^ii ' | sed 's/ */\t/g' |cut -f 2,3 | sed 's/\t/=/' | xargs apt-get install --reinstall -y --ignore-missing
Explained:
The key is actually specifying the required version of each package.
The general command is:
apt-get install --reinstall <package>=<version>
Breaking down the long command line:
$ dpkg -l
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-===========================================================-==================================-============-========================================================================
ii adduser 3.113+nmu3 all add and remove users and groups
ii apt 0.9.7.8+rpi1 armhf commandline package manager
ii apt-utils 0.9.7.8+rpi1 armhf package managment related utility programs
ii aptitude-common 0.6.8.2-1 all architecture indepedent files for the aptitude package manager
ii atmel-firmware 1.3-4 all Firmware for Atmel at76c50x wireless networking chips.
$ dpkg -l | grep '^ii '
...gets rid of the header lines and a few packages with status 'hold
' (marked as hi
instead of ii
)
$ dpkg -l | grep '^ii ' | sed 's/ */\t/g'
... converts any number of spaces to a single TAB character, preparing the ground for cut
.
(Btw: why, oh why, doesn't sed
support x+
regex for "character x, one or more times"? It can be emulated with xx*
- meaning 'x' once followed by 'x' zero or more times)
The output looks like this:
ii adduser 3.113+nmu3 all add and remove users and groups
ii apt 0.9.7.8+rpi1 armhf commandline package manager
ii apt-utils 0.9.7.8+rpi1 armhf package managment related utility programs
ii aptitude-common 0.6.8.2-1 all architecture indepedent files for the aptitude package manager
ii atmel-firmware 1.3-4 all Firmware for Atmel at76c50x wireless networking chips.
Next:
$ dpkg -l | grep '^ii ' | sed 's/ */\t/g' | cut -f 2,3 | sed 's/\t/=/'
...gets the name and version of each package (the 2nd and 3rd fields), and replaces the tab that separates them with an '='
adduser=3.113+nmu3
apt=0.9.7.8+rpi1
apt-utils=0.9.7.8+rpi1
aptitude-common=0.6.8.2-1
atmel-firmware=1.3-4
Finally, pipe each of the above to apt-get as a long list of arguments using xargs
.
Notice the parameter --ignore-missing
- this command is run as 'best effort' - I don't want the updating to stop because some packages are not available to reinstall (those will stay unmodified)
$ dpkg -l | grep '^ii ' | sed 's/ */\t/g' |cut -f 2,3 | sed 's/\t/=/' | xargs apt-get install --reinstall --ignore-missing
While testing, I also added a --dry-run
argument to apt-get.
For quickly getting help on a Bash builtin, use help
:
help read
is what you want.
For man-page-like formatting, use
help -m read
or, even better,
help -m read | less
If you still insist on looking for it in the man page, I find what quickly gets me to a command's explanation is
/^\s*read [[]
This works because when a command is first explained, its name is indented slightly from the start of the line. In the particular case of read
, this takes a little browsing before you get to the actual read
documentation because (for obvious reasons) the word "read" is repeated a lot throughout the man page. The [[] means to match a [ which usually precedes optional parameters. (I usually leave out /^\s* and simply do /<built-in command> [[])
Another alternative
If you don't mind the format change, you can convert your man page to a DVI or PDF file:
man -T dvi bash >bash.dvi
or
man -T ps bash | ps2pdf - bash.pdf # Requires the Ghostscript suite for ps2pdf
Of course, given a DVI or PDF document, you can then do a text search easily.
Best Answer
In order to use the man command, you must also install the
man
package before or after theman-pages
oneNow
man
is installed