OPAM-ADMIN-LIST(1)

📦
version 2.6.1 · 8 versions
, in arch rolling, fedora 44

👑 opam admin-list — the Opam admin Manual girlies know 💅

okay so bestie, welcome to opam admin-list, straight outta the Opam admin manual ✨ this one is literally the vibe check for a repo. let's get into it 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

opam admin-list — lists packages from a repository 📦✨

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

opam admin list [--environment=VAR=VALUE[,VAR=VALUE]] [OPTION]…
[PATTERNS]…

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so this command is giving major opam list energy, right? but the plot twist is that it lists packages directly from a repository instead of whatever's chillin' in a given opam installation. no cap. it's the repo version of the thing you already know and love 😭💖

🍓 ARGUMENTS 🍓

  • PATTERNS — package patterns, but make it globs 🫧 they match against NAME or NAME.VERSION. yes bestie, globs. it's giving flexible ✨

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --environment=VAR=VALUE[,VAR=VALUE] — use the given opam environment, in the form of a list of comma-separated var=value bindings, when resolving variables 🔍 this gets used e.g. when it's computing available packages: if it's undefined, availability of packages will be assumed as soon as it can't be resolved purely from globally defined variables. lowkey important. also bestie, heads up: unless you override them, variables like root or opam-version may be taken from the current opam installation 👀 and what's defined in ~/.opam/config is always ignored. yes, always. periodt 🙅♀️

🌈 ORDER-SENSIBLE SELECTORS 🌈

okay so these options are sensible to the order you give them to the command 👑 like, the order matters. for example: --available --latests-only will first list all the available packages, then choose only the latest packages in that set; while --latests-only --available will first list all the latest packages, then only show the ones that are available in that set 💫 so yeah. order = everything. iykyk.

  • -a, --available — list only packages that are available according to the defined environment ✅ without --environment, this will include any packages for which availability is not resolvable at this point 🙈
  • -A, --all — include all, even uninstalled or unavailable packages 💀 all of them. the whole guest list.
  • --installable — list only packages that are installable according to the defined environment 🛠️ (this calls the solver and may be more costly — a package depending on an unavailable one may be available, but is never installable 😭)
  • --latests-only — list only the latest version of each package ⭐ just the freshest one, bestie.

🧚 PACKAGE SELECTION OPTIONS 🧚

these options will always be given to the command in the same order, no matter what order you typed them in 🫶 it's giving "we don't do chaos here."

  • --coinstallable-with=PACKAGES — only list packages that are compatible with all of PACKAGES 🤝 group project but everyone actually gets along.
  • --conflicts-with=PACKAGES — list packages that have declared conflicts with at least one of the given list 💥 this includes conflicts defined from the packages in the list, from the other package, or by a common conflict-class: field. messy, but documented.
  • --depends-on=PACKAGES — list only packages that depend on one of (comma-separated) PACKAGES 🔗
  • --depopts — include optional dependencies in dependency requests 🎀
  • --dev — include development packages in dependencies 👩💻
  • --field-match=FIELD:PATTERN — filter packages with a match for PATTERN on the given FIELD 🔍
  • --has-flag=FLAG — only include packages which have the given flag set 🚩 package flags are one of: light-uninstall verbose plugin compiler conf
  • --has-tag=TAG — only includes packages which have the given tag set 🏷️
  • --nobuild — exclude build dependencies (they are included by default) 🙅♀️
  • --or — instead of selecting packages that match all the criteria, select packages that match any of them 🌈 either/or energy.
  • --post — include dependencies tagged as post 📮
  • --recursive — with --depends-on and --required-by, display all transitive dependencies rather than just direct dependencies 🌀 it goes deep.
  • --required-by=PACKAGES — list only the dependencies of (comma-separated) PACKAGES 📥
  • --resolve=PACKAGES — restrict to a solution to install (comma-separated) PACKAGES, i.e. a consistent set of packages including those 🧩 this is subtly different from --required-by --recursive, which is more predictable and can't fail, but lists all dependencies independently without ensuring consistency. without --installed, the answer is self-contained and independent of the current installation; with --installed, it's computed from the set of currently installed packages. --no-switch further makes the solution independent from the currently pinned packages, architecture, and compiler version. the combination with --depopts is not supported 🚫 bestie don't do it.
  • -t, --with-test, --test — include test-only dependencies 🧪
  • --with-dev-setup — include developer only dependencies 🛠️
  • --with-doc, --doc — include doc-only dependencies 📚

✨ OUTPUT FORMAT OPTIONS ✨

  • --columns=COLUMNS — select the columns to display among: name, version, package, synopsis, synopsis-or-target, description, <field>:, installed-version, pin, source-hash, opam-file, all-installed-versions, available-versions, all-versions, repository, installed-files, vc-ref, depexts 🗂️ the special form <field>: (field name followed by colon, e.g., license:) selects an arbitrary field. the default is name when --short is present and name, installed-version, synopsis-or-target otherwise 💖
  • --normalise — print the values of opam fields normalised 💅
  • -S, --sort — sort the packages in dependency order (i.e. an order in which they could be individually installed.) 🔢 chef's kiss ordering.
  • -s, --short — don't print a header, and sets the default columns to name only 🫧 if you need package versions included, use --columns=package instead.
  • --separator=STRING (absent= ) — set the column-separator string 🎀 yes it defaults to a literal space, iconic.
  • -V, --all-versions — normally, when multiple versions of a package match, only one is shown in the output (the installed one, the pinned-to one, or, failing that, the highest one available or the highest one). this flag disables this behaviour and shows all matching versions. this also changes the default display format to include package versions instead of just package names (including when --short is set). this is automatically turned on when a single non-pattern package name is provided on the command-line 🌟
  • --wrap — wrap long lines, the default being to truncate when displaying on a terminal, or to keep as is otherwise 🧻

okay bestie we're not done yet, there's more coming — stay tuned 💖

💖 COMMON OPTIONS 💖

okay bestie, these are the ones every single opam command shares, so like… learn them once, slay forever. ✨

  • --best-effort — don't be dramatic if not every package you asked for can actually be installed: just try to install as many as possible instead of rage-quitting. lowkey important: not all external solvers support this (recent versions of aspcud or mccs should tho). Totally equivalent to setting the $OPAMBESTEFFORT environment variable. 🫶
  • --cli=MAJOR.MINOR (absent=2.6) — use the command-line interface syntax and semantics of MAJOR.MINOR. It's giving "for any persistent use of opam" (scripts, blog posts, etc.) — any version of opam in the same MAJOR series will behave as for the specified MINOR release. 🎀 Heads up: this flag wasn't available in opam 2.0, so to select the 2.0 CLI, set the OPAMCLI environment variable to 2.0 instead of using this parameter.
  • --color=WHEN — colorize the output 💅. WHEN must be one of always, never or auto.
  • --confirm-level=LEVEL — the confirmation level, and LEVEL must be one of ask, no, yes or unsafe-yes. Can be specified more than once (yes, more than once, icon). If --yes or --no are also given, the value of the last --confirm-level is taken into account. Equivalent to setting $OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL. ⭐
  • --criteria=CRITERIA — specify user preferences for dependency solving for this run. Overrides $OPAMCRITERIA, $OPAMFIXUPCRITERIA and $OPAMUPGRADECRITERIA. For details on the supported language, and the external solvers available, see http://opam.ocaml.org/doc/External_solvers.html. A general guide to using solver preferences can be found at http://www.dicosmo.org/Articles/usercriteria.pdf. 📚
  • --cudf=FILENAME — debug option, bestie: save the CUDF requests sent to the solver to FILENAME-<n>.cudf, where <n> is the n-th call to the solver during the opam run. 🔍
  • --debug — print debug message to stderr. Equivalent to setting $OPAMDEBUG to "true".
  • --debug-level=LEVEL — like --debug, but allows specifying the debug level (--debug sets it to 1). Equivalent to setting $OPAMDEBUG to a positive integer.
  • --git-version — print the git version of opam, if set (i.e. you are using a development version), and exit. 🌈
  • --help[=FMT] (default=auto) — show this help in format FMT. The value FMT must be one of auto, pager, groff or plain. With auto, the format is pager or plain whenever the TERM env var is dumb or undefined.
  • --ignore-pin-depends — ignore extra pins required by packages that get pinned, either manually through opam pin or through opam install DIR. This is equivalent to setting IGNOREPINDEPENDS=true.
  • --json=FILENAME — save the results of the opam run in a computer-readable file. If the filename contains the character %, it will be replaced by an index that doesn't overwrite an existing file. Similar to setting the $OPAMJSON variable. 🤖
  • --no — answer no to all opam yes/no questions without prompting. See also --confirm-level. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMNO to "true".
  • --no-aspcud — removed in 2.1. 💀 gone, girl, it's not coming back.
  • --no-auto-upgrade — when configuring or updating a repository that is written for an earlier opam version (1.2), opam internally converts it to the current format. This disables that behaviour. Note that repositories should define their format version in a 'repo' file at their root, or they will be assumed to be in the older format. It is, in any case, preferable to upgrade the repositories manually using opam admin upgrade [--mirror URL] when possible. 🧚
  • -q, --quiet — disables --verbose. shhh 🤫
  • --root=ROOT — use ROOT as the current root path. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMROOT to ROOT.
  • --safe, --readonly — make sure nothing will be automatically updated or rewritten. Super useful for calling from completion scripts, for example. Will fail whenever such an operation is needed ; also avoids waiting for locks, skips interactive questions and overrides the $OPAMDEBUG variable. This is equivalent to set environment variable $OPAMSAFE. 🛡️
  • --solver=CMD — specify the CUDF solver to use for resolving package installation problems. This is either a predefined solver (this version of opam supports builtin-mccs+lp(), builtin-mccs+glpk, builtin-dummy-z3-solver, builtin-0install, aspcud, mccs, aspcud-old, packup), or a custom command that should contain the variables %{input}%, %{output}%, %{criteria}%, and optionally %{timeout}%. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMEXTERNALSOLVER. 🔥
  • --strict — fail whenever an error is found in a package definition or a configuration file. The default is to continue silently if possible. no cap, strict mode does not play.
  • --switch=SWITCH — use SWITCH as the current compiler switch. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMSWITCH to SWITCH.
  • --use-internal-solver — disable any external solver, and use the built-in one (this requires that opam has been compiled with a built-in solver). This is equivalent to setting $OPAMNOASPCUD or $OPAMUSEINTERNALSOLVER.
  • -v, --verbose — be more verbose. One -v shows all package commands, repeat to also display commands called internally (e.g. tar, curl, patch etc.) Repeating n times is equivalent to setting $OPAMVERBOSE to "n". 📢
  • --version — show version information.
  • -w, --working-dir — whenever updating packages that are bound to a local, version-controlled directory, update to the current working state of their source instead of the last committed state, or the ref they are pointing to. As source directory is copied as it is, if it isn't clean it may result on a opam build failure. This only affects packages explicitly listed on the command-line. It can also be set with $OPAMWORKINGDIR. ⚠️
  • -y, --yes — answer yes to all opam yes/no questions without prompting. See also --confirm-level. This is equivalent to setting $OPAMYES to "true". 💖

🌸 ENVIRONMENT 🌸

okay bestie so opam is very into environment variables, and here's the whole roster. Boolean variables? Set them to "0", "no", "false" or the empty string to turn them OFF, and "1", "yes" or "true" to turn them ON. That's the rules, no cap. 💅

  • OPAMALLPARENS — surround all filters with parenthesis. yeah. all of them.
  • OPAMASSUMEDEPEXTS — see option --assume-depexts.
  • OPAMAUTOANSWER — internal use only. nothing to see here, move along 🫣
  • OPAMAUTOREMOVE — see the remove option --auto-remove.
  • OPAMBESTEFFORT — see option --best-effort.
  • OPAMBESTEFFORTPREFIXCRITERIA — sets the string that must be prepended to the criteria when the --best-effort option is set, and it's expected to maximise the opam-query property in the solution.
  • OPAMBUILDDOC — Removed in 2.1. 💀 gone and not coming back.
  • OPAMBUILDTEST — Removed in 2.1. also gone bestie.
  • OPAMCLI — see option --cli.
  • OPAMCOLOR — when set to always or never, sets a default value for the --color option.
  • OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL — see option --confirm-level. and heads up: OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL has priority over OPAMYES and OPAMNO. she's the main character here ✨
  • OPAMCRITERIA — specifies user preferences for dependency solving. the default value depends on the solver version, so use config report to know the current setting. also see option --criteria.
  • OPAMCUDFFILE — save the cudf graph to file-actions-explicit.dot.
  • OPAMCUDFTRIM — controls the filtering of unrelated packages during CUDF preprocessing.
  • OPAMCURL — can be used to select a given curl program. see OPAMFETCH for more options.
  • OPAMDEBUG — see options --debug and --debug-level.
  • OPAMDEBUGSECTIONS — if set, limits debug messages to the space-separated list of sections. sections can optionally have a specific debug level (for example, CLIENT:2 or CLIENT CUDF:2), but otherwise use --debug-level.
  • OPAMDIGDEPTH — defines how aggressive the lookup for conflicts during CUDF preprocessing is.
  • OPAMDOWNLOADJOBS — sets the maximum number of simultaneous downloads.
  • OPAMDROPWORKINGDIR — overrides packages previously updated with --working-dir on update. without this variable set, opam would keep them unchanged unless explicitly named on the command-line.
  • OPAMDRYRUN — see option --dry-run.
  • OPAMEDITOR — sets the editor to use for opam file editing, overriding $EDITOR and $VISUAL. she said my editor now 💅
  • OPAMERRLOGLEN — sets the number of log lines printed when a sub-process fails. 0 to print all.
  • OPAMEXTERNALSOLVER — see option --solver.
  • OPAMFAKE — see option --fake.
  • OPAMFETCH — specifies how to download files: either wget, curl or a custom command where variables %{url}%, %{out}%, %{retry}%, %{compress}% and %{checksum}% will be replaced. overrides the 'download-command' value from the main config file.
  • OPAMFIXUPCRITERIA — same as OPAMUPGRADECRITERIA, but specific to fixup and reinstall.
  • OPAMIGNOREAVAILABLE — see the install option --ignore-available-on.
  • OPAMIGNORECONSTRAINTS — see the install option --ignore-constraints-on.
  • OPAMIGNOREPINDEPENDS — see option --ignore-pin-depends.
  • OPAMINPLACEBUILD — see option --inplace-build.
  • OPAMJOBS — sets the maximum number of parallel workers to run.
  • OPAMJSON — log json output to the given file (use character % to index the files).
  • OPAMKEEPBUILDDIR — see the install option --keep-build-dir.
  • OPAMKEEPLOGS — tells opam to not remove some temporary command logs and some backups. this skips some finalisers and may also help to get more reliable backtraces.
  • OPAMLOCKED — combination of --locked and --lock-suffix options.
  • OPAMLOGS — logdir sets log directory, default is a temporary directory in /tmp.
  • OPAMMAKECMD — set the system make command to use.
  • OPAMMERGEOUT — merge process outputs, stderr on stdout.
  • OPAMNO — answer no to any question asked, see options --no and --confirm-level. OPAMNO is ignored if either OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL or OPAMYES is set.
  • OPAMNOAGGREGATE — with opam admin check, don't aggregate packages.
  • OPAMNOASPCUD — Deprecated. 🚩
  • OPAMNOAUTOUPGRADE — disables automatic internal upgrade of repositories in an earlier format to the current one, on 'update' or 'init'.
  • OPAMNOCHECKSUMS — enables option --no-checksums when available.
  • OPAMNODEPEXTS — disables system dependencies handling, see option --no-depexts.
  • OPAMNOENVNOTICE — Internal.
  • OPAMNOSELFUPGRADE — see option --no-self-upgrade.
  • OPAMPINKINDAUTO — sets whether version control systems should be detected when pinning to a local path. enabled by default since 1.3.0.
  • OPAMPRECISETRACKING — fine grain tracking of directories.
  • OPAMPREPRO — set this to false to disable CUDF preprocessing. less efficient, but might help debugging solver issues.
  • OPAMREPOSITORYTARRING — internally store all non-vcs repositories as tar.gz files (by default, http repositories are stored as archive). this can be much faster on filesystems that don't cope well with scanning large trees. all operations are done in-memory, no I/O for scanning the repository.
  • OPAMREQUIRECHECKSUMS — Enables option --require-checksums when available (e.g. for opam install).
  • OPAMRETRIES — sets the number of tries before failing downloads.
  • OPAMREUSEBUILDDIR — see option --reuse-build-dir.
  • OPAMROOT — see option --root. this is automatically set by opam env --root=DIR --set-root.
  • OPAMROOTISOK — don't complain when running as root.
  • OPAMSAFE — see option --safe.
  • OPAMSHOW — see option --show.
  • OPAMSKIPUPDATE — see option --skip-updates.
  • OPAMSKIPVERSIONCHECKS — bypasses some version checks. Unsafe, for compatibility testing only. fr fr be careful.
  • OPAMSOLVERALLOWSUBOPTIMAL — (default true) allows some solvers to still return a solution when they reach timeout; while the solution remains assured to be consistent, there is no guarantee in this case that it fits the expected optimisation criteria. if true, opam will continue with a warning, if false a timeout is an error. currently only the builtin-z3 backend handles this degraded case.
  • OPAMSOLVERTIMEOUT — change the time allowance of the solver. default is 60.0, set to 0 for unlimited. note that all solvers may not support this option.
  • OPAMSOLVERTOLERANCE — changes the tolerance towards the solver choosing an unoptimized solution (i.e. might pull outdated packages). typical values range from 0.0 (best solution known to the solver) to 1.0 (unoptimized solution). default is 0.0. this option is useful in case the solver can't find a solution in a reasonable time (see $OPAMSOLVERTIMEOUT). note that all solvers may not support this option.
  • OPAMSTATS — Removed in 2.4. 💀
  • OPAMSTATUSLINE — display a dynamic status line showing what's currently going on on the terminal. (one of always, never or auto)
  • OPAMSTRICT — fail on inconsistencies (file reading, switch import, etc.).
  • OPAMSWITCH — see option --switch. automatically set by opam env --switch=SWITCH --set-switch.
  • OPAMUNLOCKBASE — see the install option --unlock-base.
  • OPAMUPGRADECRITERIA — specifies user preferences for dependency solving when performing an upgrade. overrides OPAMCRITERIA in upgrades if both are set. see also option --criteria.
  • OPAMUSEINTERNALSOLVER — see option --use-internal-solver.
  • OPAMUSEOPENSSL — Removed in 2.2.
  • OPAMUTF8 — use UTF8 characters in output (one of always, never or auto). by default auto, which is determined from the locale).
  • OPAMUTF8MSGS — use extended UTF8 characters (camels) in opam messages. implies OPAMUTF8. this is set by default on macOS only. 🐪 iconic honestly
  • OPAMVALIDATIONHOOK — if set, uses the %{hook}% command to validate an opam repository update.
  • OPAMVERBOSE — see option --verbose.
  • OPAMVERBOSEON — see option --verbose-on.
  • OPAMVERSIONLAGPOWER — do not use. that's it. that's the whole description bestie 😭
  • OPAMWITHDEVSETUP — see the install option --with-dev-setup.
  • OPAMWITHDOC — see the install option --with-doc.
  • OPAMWITHTEST — see the install option --with-test.
  • OPAMWORKINGDIR — see option --working-dir.
  • OPAMYES — see options --yes and --confirm-level. OPAMYES has priority over OPAMNO and is ignored if OPAMCONFIRMLEVEL is set.
  • OPAMVAR_var — overrides the contents of the variable var when substituting %{var}% strings in opam files.
  • OPAMVAR_package_var — overrides the contents of the variable package:var when substituting %{package:var}% strings in opam files.

🦋 CLI VERSION 🦋

okay so listen, this part is IMPORTANT and honestly kinda iconic:

all scripts and programmatic invocations of opam should use --cli in order to ensure that they work seamlessly with future versions of the opam client. additionally, blog posts or other documentation can benefit, because it prevents information from becoming stale. future-proofing is self-care ✨

although opam only supports roots (~/.opam/) for the current version, it does provide backwards compatibility for its command-line interface.

since CLI version support was only added in opam 2.1, use OPAMCLI to select 2.0 support (because opam 2.0 will just ignore it), and --cli=2.1 for 2.1 (or later) versions — since an environment variable controlling the parsing of syntax is brittle. to this end, opam displays a warning if OPAMCLI specifies a valid version other than 2.0, and also if --cli=2.0 is specified. 👀 she's watching.

the command-line version is selected by using the --cli option or the OPAMCLI environment variable. --cli may be specified more than once, where the last instance takes precedence. OPAMCLI is only inspected if --cli is not given. last one wins, always. periodt. 💅

💀 EXIT STATUS 💀

okay bestie, big exception first, write it down: the exec command does NOT play by these rules. if the command wasn't found or couldn't be executed, it returns 127, and otherwise it returns the command's own exit value. that's it, that's the exception, don't forget it 💅

everyone else? here's the tea:

  • 0 — Success, or true for boolean queries. living your best life ✨
  • 1 — False. Comes back when a boolean return value is expected, like when you're running with --check, or for queries like opam lint. it's not an error, it's just a "no" 🫶
  • 2 — Bad command-line arguments, or arguments pointing to an invalid context (say, a file that doesn't follow the expected format). typo era 😭
  • 5 — Not found. You asked for something (package, version, repository, etc.) and it is simply not there. it's giving ghosted 👻
  • 10 — Aborted. The operation needed confirmation and you didn't give it.
  • 15 — Could not acquire the locks required for the operation. 🔒 someone else is in there
  • 20 — There is no solution to the user request. this can happen when you ask to install two incompatible packages, for example. the math said no 💀
  • 30 — Error in package definition, or other metadata files. heads up: using --strict raises this error more often.
  • 31 — Package script error. Some package operations were unsuccessful. this may be an error in the packages, or an incompatibility with your system. and it can be a partial error, so like, some of it worked 🔥
  • 40 — Sync error. Could not fetch some remotes from the network. also can be a partial error 🫠
  • 50 — Configuration error. Opam or system configuration doesn't allow the operation and needs fixing. it's not you, it's the config 🎀
  • 60 — Solver failure. The solver failed to return a sound answer. can be a broken external solver, or an error in solver configuration.
  • 99 — Internal error. Something went wrong, likely due to a bug in opam itself. not us, it's the algorithm 🙈
  • 130 — User interrupt. SIGINT was received, generally because the user pressed Ctrl-C. iconic rage quit ✋

and then there's this next little set, right after:

  • 0 — on success.
  • 123 — on indiscriminate errors reported on standard error.
  • 124 — on command line parsing errors.
  • 125 — on unexpected internal errors (bugs).

📚 FURTHER DOCUMENTATION 📚

the lore continues at https://opam.ocaml.org/doc — go read, bestie, there's so much more where this came from 🌈

👑 AUTHORS 👑

the absolute legends who made this happen, no cap, show some respect:

  • David Allsopp <david@tarides.com>
  • Vincent Bernardoff <vb@luminar.eu.org>
  • Raja Boujbel <raja.boujbel@ocamlpro.com>
  • Kate Deplaix <kit-ty-kate@exn.st>
  • Roberto Di Cosmo <roberto@dicosmo.org>
  • Thomas Gazagnaire <thomas@gazagnaire.org>
  • Louis Gesbert <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com>
  • Fabrice Le Fessant <Fabrice.Le_fessant@inria.fr>
  • Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@recoil.org>
  • Guillem Rieu <guillem.rieu@ocamlpro.com>
  • Ralf Treinen <ralf.treinen@pps.jussieu.fr>
  • Frederic Tuong <tuong@users.gforge.inria.fr>

main character energy, every single one 💖

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

  • opam admin(1) — the whole fam, iykyk

🐛 BUGS 🐛

found something cursed? check the bug reports at https://github.com/ocaml/opam/issues. they wanna know, fr fr 🫶

and that's a wrap on the whole page, bestie 🎀 this was Opam admin 2.6.1, the OPAM ADMIN-LIST(1) page — version 2.6.1 and its date info are the very last things on the page, so consider this your cute little sign-off instead of that boring footer line. go forth and opam admin list responsibly ✨💜

📦 where this page comes from