PKG-SHLIB(8)

💅 pkg-shlib(8) — the manual, but make it make sense

okay so bestie, welcome to the pkg-shlib page 💖 it lives in section 8 of the manual (system manager's manual, very main character), and it's genuinely one of the most useful little tools in the pkg family. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

pkg shlib — literally shows you which installed package provides a shared library, or which one requires it. that's the whole vibe. no cap 💅

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

pkg shlib [-q] [-PR] library

pkg shlib [--quiet] [--{provides,requires}] library

two flavours, same energy: short flags or long flags, pick your fighter 🌸

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So pkg shlib is the tool you reach for when you're like "okay but who is responsible for this library??" 😭 It displays the packages that provide library — meaning they contain it — or the packages that require library — meaning they contain binaries that link to it.

Installed packages only, iykyk.

Now, library should be shaped like libname.so.0 or /path/to/libname.so.0 👑

In the second case — the fancy full-path one — everything up to and including the last path separator is ignored. so like, that part just gets yeeted. don't worry about it 💀

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🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

The following options are mutually exclusive, bestie — that means pick one, not both, fr fr. pkg shlib supports:

• -P, --provides — show only the installed packages which provide the named library. the library owners, the ones holding it down 👑
• -R, --requires — show only the installed packages which require library. the ones showing up at the library's door like "hey bestie can I borrow—" 🙈
• -q, --quiet — force quiet output. shhh. no extra chatter, just the facts 💅

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🌸 ENVIRONMENT 🌸

The following environment variables affect the execution of pkg shlib. See pkg.conf(5) for further description — that's where the details live, go read it, it's giving documentation ✨

• PKG_DBDIR

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🍓 FILES 🍓

See pkg.conf(5). that's it, that's the section 🎀

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

okay this list is long and honestly iconic, so here we go, every single one, no skips:

pkg_create(3), pkg_printf(3), pkg_repo_create(3), pkg_repos(3), pkg-keywords(5), pkg-lua-script(5), pkg-repository(5), pkg-script(5), pkg-triggers(5), pkg.conf(5), pkg(8), pkg-add(8), pkg-alias(8), pkg-annotate(8), pkg-audit(8), pkg-autoremove(8), pkg-check(8), pkg-clean(8), pkg-config(8), pkg-create(8), pkg-delete(8), pkg-fetch(8), pkg-help(8), pkg-info(8), pkg-install(8), pkg-key(8), pkg-lock(8), pkg-plugins(8), pkg-query(8), pkg-register(8), pkg-repo(8), pkg-repositories(8), pkg-rquery(8), pkg-search(8), pkg-set(8), pkg-shell(8), pkg-ssh(8), pkg-stats(8), pkg-triggers(8), pkg-unregister(8), pkg-update(8), pkg-updating(8), pkg-upgrade(8), pkg-version(8), pkg-which(8)

like I said. a whole friend group 🫶

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and that's the page!! hope you slayed your shared-library mystery 💜

this little beauty came out of Debian, dated August 11, 2025 — so if you're citing it, that's your source and your date, periodt 🌟