grep-available

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Date: 01/30/04

What is the precise definition of "available"?

$ grep-available dnsmasq | grep-dctrl -s Version .
Version: 2.0-1

$ apt-cache show dnsmasq | grep-dctrl -s Version .
Version: 2.1-1
Version: 2.0-1

FYI, 2.0-1 is what I have installed, but it will be upgraded to 2.1-1.

I'm using it in this script:

grep-available . | grep-dctrl -sPackage,Version . | grep '.' | sed -e \
"s/Package: /*/" -e "s/Version: /|/" | tr '\n' '|' | sed -e "s/*//g" -e \
"s/||/ /g" | tr '|' '\n' | sort

to return output like this:

$ /mnt/apt/a | head -n 3
a2ps 4.13b-20.1
aalib1 1.4p5-19
aalib1-dev 1.4p5-19

But I probably want 'apt-cache show .' instead of 'grep-available .', because the semantics I want are "all that I have or could have."

Nano Nano

grep-available

> What is the precise definition of "available"?

Whatever's in your available file (/var/lib/dpkg/available). Remember to run 'dselect update' rather than 'apt-get update' to keep this up to date. I believe only the latest version of each package is listed.

Colin Watson

grep-available

I finally ended up with this script to list the name and version of every package I have installed or could have installed [1]:

apt-cache -f pkgnames | xargs apt-cache show | \
grep-dctrl -sPackage,Version . | grep '.' | sed -e \
"s/Package: /*/" -e "s/Version: /|/" | tr '\n' '|' | sed -e "s/*//g" \
 -e "s/||/ /g" | tr '|' '\n' | sort

$ /mnt/apt/a | head -n3
3dchess 0.8.1-11
3ddesktop 0.2.4-1
3dwm-clock 0.3.1-11.3

You can run this though "cut -d' ' -f1 | uniq" and diff any two instances of this to see what packages are "new".

[1] All versions that "apt-cache show" will show will be included.

Nano Nano

documented on: 2005.01.16