pkghist

pkghist queries your Pacman logfile for the local history of either single packages or your entire installation.

About

pkghist parses Pacman's logfile (usually located under /var/log/pacman.log or specified via --logfile /path/to/pacman.log) and outputs version information. pkghist can list information about currently uninstalled packages using the --removed-only or --with-removed options.

Install

If you are on Arch, either install pkghist using AUR or by building it using makepkg

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/pkghist.git
cd pkghist
makepkg -si

Build

To build pkghist from source you need a Rust installation including it's build tool Cargo. Install it either using pacman or follow the official install guide.

Once Rust and Cargo are up and running, simply use:

cargo install --path .

This will build pkghist and install it into your cargo bin directory (usually ~/.cargo/bin).

Help

pkghist 0.6.0
Trace package versions from pacman's logfile

USAGE:
    pkghist [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] [filter]...

FLAGS:
    -x, --exclude         If set, every filter result will be excluded.
    -h, --help            Prints help information
        --no-colors       Disable colored output
        --no-details      Only output the package names
    -R, --removed-only    Only output packages that are currently uninstalled
    -V, --version         Prints version information
    -r, --with-removed    Include packages that are currently uninstalled

OPTIONS:
    -a, --after <date>                     Only consider events that occurred after 'date' [Format: "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM"]
        --first <n>                        Output the first 'n' pacman events
        --last <n>                         Output the last 'n' pacman events
    -L, --limit <limit>                    How many versions to go back in report. [limit > 0]
    -l, --logfile <FILE>                   Specify a logfile [default: /var/log/pacman.log]
    -o, --output-format <output-format>    Select the output format [default: plain]  [possible values: json, plain,
                                           compact]

ARGS:
    <filter>...    Filter the packages that should be searched for. Use regular expressions to specify the exact
                   pattern to match (e.g. '^linux$' only matches the package 'linux')

Usage

List all installed packages ordered by install/upgrade date

pkghist 

List the last n installed / upgraded packages

pkghist --last <n>

Limit the number of versions per package

pkghist --limit <n>

Search for a package by exact name

pkghist '^name$'

This uses regex syntax to describe the pattern to search for.

Example

pkghist '^zsh$'

This return only the package zsh and not for example zsh-syntax-highlighting.

Search for all packages containing some string

pkghist somestring

Example

pkghist zsh

This returns the package zsh as well as for example zsh-syntax-highlighting.

Excluding packages

pkghist --exclude somestring

Example

pkghist --exclude '^[a-e]'

This excludes all packages starting with the letters a to e.

List the package names of all removed packages

pkghist --no-details --removed-only

Regex examples

This is a little collection of useful regexes that can be used for filtering.

Regex	Explanation
'^package$'	Matches only packages named 'package'
'package'	Matches any package containing 'package'
'^[a-x]'	Matches any package starting with the letters 'a' to 'x'
'[a-x]'	Matches any package containing the letter 'a' to 'x'
'[^a-x]'	Matches any package NOT containing the letters 'a' to 'x'
'[[:digit:]]'	Matches any package containing a digit

Sometimes using --exclude is easier than trying to create an exclusion regex.

Using pkghist's output as input for pacman

You can use the result of a pkghist query as input for pacman.

To create an output in the matching format, use the --no-colors and the `--no-details' options in your query.

The following command installs all packages that have been removed after 2019-10-01 12:00.

sudo pacman -S $(pkghist --no-details --no-colors --removed-only --after "2019-10-01 12:00")                                             

The following command removes all packages that have been installed after 2019-10-02 12:00.

sudo pacman -R $(pkghist --no-details --no-colors --after "2019-10-02 12:00")                                                            

Shell completions

pkghist creates completion scripts for bash, fish and zsh. They are created at build time using the great clap crate. When installing using makepkg (e.g. using the AUR), they are put into the appropriate location. When installing manually, you may copy them from the completions directory into the appropriate location.

Note: When using zsh, enable loading of additional completions by adding the following line to your .zshrc

autoload -U compinit && compinit