How do I add a apt-get repository without editing /etc/apt/sources.list?

Question

I want to add a repository to apt-get (without potentially messing up /etc/apt/sources.list) through the user of a script. This script may run multiple times so I can't just append the entry each time. Is there any way I can add a single file in a directory with entries?

I know you can do this for yum, but I'm not sure if it's possible for apt-get. Please let me know if I need to add more info.

Answer 1

You can place files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d. This is described in the man page for sources.list (type man sources.list). The man page says:

SOURCES.LIST.D

The /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory provides a way to add sources.list entries in separate files. The format is the same as for the regular sources.list file. File names need to end with .list and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z), digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters. Otherwise they will be silently ignored.

Answer 2

You could try:

add-apt-repository <REPOSITORY LINE>

The repository line would just be what you would append to the sources.list or a PPA repository. Check out the manpage here, or execute:

man add-apt-repository