apt-mark: list automatically-installed packages

[Paul Sladen]

Binary package hint: apt

Currently 'apt-mark' can set, or unset the auto-remove status ('Auto-Installed:') in /var/lib/apt/extended_states .

However, the best way to *list* the content of those flags appears to be some invocation of

  grep -A1 packagename /var/lib/apt/extended_states

Ideally, if apt-mark is given a commandline with no set/unset command it should list the status of the matching package(s).

Alternatively, this could be via an added 'apt-mark list' or 'apt-mark show' option.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Colin suggests a current (clean) workaround is:

  $ grep-dctrl -nsAuto-Installed -PX libc6-dev /var/lib/apt/extended_states

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

 Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

This should have been there at the time the bug was reported, as apt-mark showauto. It's replaced by apt-cache showauto now.