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# package_facts – package information as facts

New in version 2.5.

- Synopsis

- Requirements

- Parameters

- Examples

- Returned Facts

- Status

## Synopsis

- Return information about installed packages as facts

## Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

- For ‘portage’ support it requires the `qlist` utility, which is part of ‘app-portage/portage-utils’.

- For Debian-based systems `python-apt` package must be installed on targeted hosts.

## Parameters

Parameter | Choices/Defaults | Comments
--- | --- | ---
manager list | Choices: auto ← rpm apt portage pkg Default: ["auto"] | The package manager used by the system so we can query the package information. Since 2.8 this is a list and can support multiple package managers per system. The 'portage' and 'pkg' options were added in version 2.8.
strategy - added in 2.8 | Choices: first ← all | This option controls how the module queries the package managers on the system. `first` means it will return only information for the first supported package manager available. `all` will return information for all supported and available package managers on the system.

## Examples

    - name: Gather the rpm package facts
      package_facts:
        manager: auto

    - name: Print the rpm package facts
      debug:
        var: ansible_facts.packages

    - name: Check whether a package called foobar is installed
      debug:
        msg: "{{ ansible_facts.packages['foobar'] | length }} versions of foobar are installed!"
      when: "'foobar' in ansible_facts.packages"

## Returned Facts

Facts returned by this module are added/updated in the `hostvars` host facts and can be referenced by name just like any other host fact. They do not need to be registered in order to use them.

Fact | Returned | Description
--- | --- | ---
packages dictionary | when operating system level package manager is specified or auto detected manager | Maps the package name to a non-empty list of dicts with package information. Every dict in the list corresponds to one installed version of the package. The fields described below are present for all package managers. Depending on the package manager, there might be more fields for a package. Sample: { "packages": { "kernel": [ { "name": "kernel", "source": "rpm", "version": "3.10.0", ... }, { "name": "kernel", "source": "rpm", "version": "3.10.0", ... }, ... ], "kernel-tools": [ { "name": "kernel-tools", "source": "rpm", "version": "3.10.0", ... } ], ... } }
| name string | always | The package's name.
| source string | always | Where information on the package came from.
| version string | always | The package's version.

## Status

- This module is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface. [preview]

- This module is maintained by the Ansible Community. [community]

### Authors

- Matthew Jones (@matburt)

- Brian Coca (@bcoca)

- Adam Miller (@maxamillion)

Hint

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