The –l (ell) option queries all the files in a package. You can also use the longer option, --list, in place of –l. The basic syntax is:

rpm –ql package

For example, to query the files in the tcsh package, you’ll see the following:

# rpm -ql tcsh

/bin/csh

/bin/tcsh

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/FAQ

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/Fixes

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/NewThings

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/complete.tcsh

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/eight-bit.txt

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/header.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/index.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/lists.html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man2html

/usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/top.html

/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/el/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/locale/ja/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

/usr/share/man/man1/tcsh.1.gz

Note

You can pass more than one package name to this option, but it won’t tell you which package owns which file. Use the --filesbypkg option to list files by package (see the related sidebar).

Listing Files By Package

The --filesbypkg option outputs the files by package, so you can make some sense of a list of files from more than one package.

For example:

# rpm -q --filesbypkg file openssh-clients

file /usr/bin/file

file /usr/share/magic

file /usr/share/magic.mgc

file /usr/share/magic.mime

file /usr/share/man/man1/file.1.gz

file /usr/share/man/man5/magic.5.gz

openssh-clients /etc/ssh/ssh_config

openssh-clients /usr/bin/sftp

openssh-clients /usr/bin/slogin

openssh-clients /usr/bin/ssh

openssh-clients /usr/bin/ssh-add

openssh-clients /usr/bin/ssh-agent

openssh-clients /usr/bin/ssh-keyscan

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/sftp.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/slogin.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/ssh-add.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/ssh-agent.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/ssh-keyscan.1.gz

openssh-clients /usr/share/man/man1/ssh.1.gz

Use this option without –l, because the –l option will also list the files alone, without any package name.

The –v (verbose) option can give you more information on the files when used with the various query options. For example:

# rpm -qlv tcsh

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Jun 24 2001 /bin/csh -> tcsh

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 288604 Jun 24 2001 /bin/tcsh

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8306 Aug 25 2000 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/FAQ

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64761 Nov 19 2000 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/Fixes

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6518 Oct 2 1998 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/NewThings

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 41328 Nov 19 2000 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/complete.tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4668 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/eight-bit.txt

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 124 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/header.html

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/index.html -> top.html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 911 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/lists.html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22542 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/tcsh.man2html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 693 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/doc/tcsh-6.10/tcsh.html/top.html

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 45861 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 47566 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/el/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 47413 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 47156 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48264 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18682 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/locale/ja/LC_MESSAGES/tcsh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 62399 Jun 24 2001 /usr/share/man/man1/tcsh.1.gz

This information is the same as a long listing on the files.

As you can see, the –l option results in quite a lot of output. In some cases, though, you aren’t interested in documentation and other miscellaneous files in the package. It’s the commands and libraries that cause the most package-related problems. To help with this, you can use a series of rpm options to list only certain types of files.