# PKG info gets information about some packages but not others..?



## Avery Freeman (Jan 11, 2018)

Hi, 

I love FreeBSD, I'm running 11.1 I just downloaded and updated, etc.  Installed a few packages to operate as a Samba AD DC, works great so far (using UFS, not ZFS - but for another thread...)

Just a simple question I can't seem to figure out: 

I use info in other package managers to get info about packages before I download them.  Usually they will expound on the short description listed when doing a package search. 

I noticed this doesn't work with pkg info --- or pkg info -f - doesn't matter if I include the entire package name and version.  So I thought ...

But then I discovered that it seems to work with some packages but not others!  

For instance: 

```
# pkg info -f krb5-1.15.2
pkg: No package(s) matching krb5-1.15.2
```

But then...

```
# pkg info nano
nano-2.9.1
Name           : nano
Version        : 2.9.1
Installed on   : Wed Jan 10 16:02:31 2018 PST
Origin         : editors/nano
Architecture   : FreeBSD:11:amd64
Prefix         : /usr/local
Categories     : editors
Licenses       : GPLv3
Maintainer     : danilo@FreeBSD.org
WWW            : http://www.nano-editor.org/
Comment        : Nano's ANOther editor, an enhanced free Pico clone
Options        :
    DOCS           : on
    EXAMPLES       : on
    NLS            : on
Shared Libs required:
    libintl.so.8
Annotations    :
    repo_type      : binary
    repository     : FreeBSD
Flat size      : 2.09MiB
Description    :
nano is a small, free and friendly editor which aims to replace
Pico, the default editor included in the non-free Pine package.
Rather than just copying Pico's look and feel, nano also implements
some missing (or disabled by default) features in Pico, such as
"search and replace" and "goto line number".

WWW: http://www.nano-editor.org/
```

can anyone explain to me why I'm getting this behavior?

Thank you!


----------



## tobik@ (Jan 11, 2018)

Avery Freeman said:


> I use info in other package managers to get info about packages before I download them. Usually they will expound on the short description listed when doing a package search.
> 
> I noticed this doesn't work with pkg info --- or pkg info -f - doesn't matter if I include the entire package name and version. So I thought ...
> 
> But then I discovered that it seems to work with some packages but not others!


pkg-info(8) only works on installed packages.  Use pkg-search(8) if you want to display information about uninstalled packages e.g. `pkg search -f krb5-1.15.2`.

There is also the more generic pkg-query(8) for installed and pkg-rquery(8) for uninstalled packages.


----------



## ShelLuser (Jan 11, 2018)

Also: if you use -x you can use regular expressions ergo partial names. This makes it a lot easier to find what you're looking for when dealing with installed packages:


```
unicron:/home/peter $ pkg info -D hack
pkg: No package(s) matching hack
unicron:/home/peter $ pkg info -Dx hack
kipi-plugin-imageshackexport-4.14.0_1:
nethack36-3.6.0_1:
```


----------



## SirDice (Jan 11, 2018)

There's also a difference if you add a specific version or not. 

```
# pkg info vim-lite
vim-lite-8.0.1427
Name           : vim-lite
Version        : 8.0.1427
Installed on   : Sun Jan  7 22:10:00 2018 CET
Origin         : editors/vim-lite
Architecture   : FreeBSD:11:amd64
Prefix         : /usr/local
Categories     : editors
Licenses       : VIM
Maintainer     : adamw@FreeBSD.org
WWW            : http://www.vim.org/
Comment        : Improved version of the vi editor (lite package)
Options        :
        DEFAULT_VIMRC  : on
Annotations    :
        cpe            : cpe:2.3:a:vim:vim:8.0:::::freebsd11:x64
        repo_type      : binary
        repository     : dicelan-server
Flat size      : 23.2MiB
Description    :
Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing.
It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems.

Vim is often called a "programmer's editor," and so useful for programming that
many consider it an entire IDE. It's not just for programmers, though. Vim is
perfect for all kinds of text editing, from composing email to editing
configuration files.

WWW: http://www.vim.org/
WWW: https://github.com/vim/vim
```


```
# pkg info vim-lite-8.0.1426
pkg: No package(s) matching vim-lite-8.0.1426
```
The last one errors because I don't have that specific version installed.

But, more importantly, pkg-info(8) only works on locally installed packages.


----------

