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#1 2025-10-25 08:34:19
- esotechnica
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- Registered: 2020-09-29
- Posts: 14
[SOLVED] Why does "pacman -Ss calc" return the perl package?
On my system, if I run the command 'pacman -Ss calc', the first entry listed is the perl package. However, the pattern 'calc' appears in neither the package name nor description, which (if I have read the man page correctly) are the only two fields that are searched.
$ pacman -Ss calc | head -2
core/perl 5.42.0-1 [installed]
A highly capable, feature-rich programming language
$ pacman -Ss calc | head -2 | grep calc
$Is this a bug or am I missing something?
Last edited by esotechnica (2025-10-26 01:05:29)
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#2 2025-10-25 09:27:14
- WorMzy
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Re: [SOLVED] Why does "pacman -Ss calc" return the perl package?
Pacman's debug flag can help shed light on the logic behind things like this:
$ pacman -Ss calc --debug
[...]
debug: searching for target 'calc'
debug: search target 'calc' matched 'perl-math-bigint-fastcalc' on package 'perl'
[...]See also: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … =heads#L78
Last edited by WorMzy (2025-10-25 09:28:55)
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#3 2025-10-25 13:03:29
- esotechnica
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- Registered: 2020-09-29
- Posts: 14
Re: [SOLVED] Why does "pacman -Ss calc" return the perl package?
Ha, it was right under my nose all the time. I did see a list of 'Provides' entries after doing a pacman -Qi perl, but didn't really understand what 'Provides' actually means. I just thought it was a list of executable programs it installed. After doing some more research, I understand what's going on now. Thanks, WorMzy!
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#4 2025-10-25 15:19:56
- seth
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Re: [SOLVED] Why does "pacman -Ss calc" return the perl package?
Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.
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