When did update-apt-xapian-index last run?

Question

How do I find out when update-apt-xapian-index last ran? Is there any way to know that?

Answer 1

The command you need is axi-cache info. You can consult its man-page or built-in help.

But the main problem that it is broken out the box on 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS and newer versions because of bug 1612948. Instead of desired output it returns error message:

$ axi-cache 
No module named 'ConfigParser': only help functions are implemented, for the sake of help2man

Citing Brian Murray from comment on bug 1760608

Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote on 2018-04-06: #4

The correct solution is to modify the import in axi-info to "from ConfigParser" to "from configparser". If someone created a debdiff I'd be happy to sponsor it.

so we can use my original proposal from comment on bug 1612948

sudo sed -i 's/from ConfigParser import RawConfigParser/from configparser import RawConfigParser/' /usr/bin/axi-cache

---

After manual patching it will work (output from 16.04 LTS):

$ axi-cache --help
Usage: axi-cache [options] command [args]
Query the Apt Xapian index.
Commands:
...
     axi-cache info      print information about the apt-xapian-index environment
...
$ axi-cache info
Main data directory: /var/lib/apt-xapian-index
Update timestamp: /var/lib/apt-xapian-index/update-timestamp (last updated: Fri Jun 15 01:33:15 2018)
Index location: /var/lib/apt-xapian-index/index (pointing to /var/cache/apt-xapian-index/index.1)
Documentation of index contents: /var/lib/apt-xapian-index/README
Documentation of available prefixes: /var/lib/apt-xapian-index/prefixes
Documentation of available values: /var/lib/apt-xapian-index/values
Plugin directory: /usr/share/apt-xapian-index/plugins
Plugin status:
  aliases         enabled, up to date (105 days, 3:48:59 older than index)
  app-install     enabled, up to date (1008 days, 14:58:48 older than index)
  apttags         enabled, needs indexing (9 days, 10:54:14.379738 newer than index)
  cataloged_time  enabled, needs indexing (9 days, 10:54:14.379738 newer than index)
  debtags         disabled
  descriptions    enabled, needs indexing (9 days, 10:54:14.379738 newer than index)
  relations       enabled, needs indexing (9 days, 10:54:14.379738 newer than index)
  sections        enabled, needs indexing (9 days, 10:54:14.379738 newer than index)
  sizes           enabled, needs indexing (9 days, 10:54:14.379738 newer than index)
  template        enabled, up to date
  translated-desc enabled, up to date (0:00:00 older than index)
Values:
  Value         Code Provided by
  app-popcon       3 app-install
  catalogedtime    4 cataloged_time
  installedsize    1 sizes
  packagesize      2 sizes
  version          0 update-apt-xapian-index
Data sources:
  Source                                           Description                                     Used by
  /usr/share/apt-xapian-index/aliases/popular-apps Aliases expanding names of popular applications aliases
  /usr/share/app-install/desktop/                  .desktop files provided by app-install-data     app-install
  /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin                      APT index                                       apttags, descriptions, relations, sections, sizes
  /var/lib/apt-xapian-index/cataloged_times.p      first-seen information for every package        cataloged_time

So we need reply and/or action from Ubuntu developers to have these fixes applied.