apt-file is a utility to search for APT packages. apt-file [options] search pattern apt-file [options] show package
apt-file list is an alias for apt-file show, apt-file find for apt-file search. apt-file show lists the contents of a package in a similar way like dpgk -L except that the package does not have to be installed of fetched. apt-file search and apt-file find are equivalent. apt-file search finds the package that contains a given filename. -x to enable regular expressions so that only the package for /usr/bin/tree, but not for /usr/bin/tree* will be found: $ apt-file search -x '^/usr/bin/tree$' tree: /usr/bin/tree Debian ~/notes/notes