Hi, I've written a small (14kB of stripped i386 binary) and fast (beats dpkg --print-avail on my unscientific tests by a rough factor of two) utility which so to speak greps any file which has the general format of a Debian control file as described in the Packaging Manual. Such files are the control files on any Debian package, and, more importantly, the dpkg available file, the dpkg status file and the Packages files on distribution media. Here are the intended typical uses for this utility: 1) Show me the available record / Packages record / something of package mixal grep-dctrl -F Package mixal /var/lib/dpkg/available This is faster than 'dpkg --print-avail mixal' by a rough factor of two on my Celeron/266 box. 2) Who maintain the essential packages in Debian? grep-dctrl -F Essential -s Maintainer yes \ /var/lib/dpkg/available | sort | uniq 3) Which packages does ajk@debian.org maintain and what are their current versions? grep-dctrl -F Maintainer -s Package,Version ajk@debian.org \ /var/lib/dpkg/available 4) Which packages have "Knuth" or "LaTeX" in their description? grep-dctrl -e -F Description -s Package '(Knuth|LaTeX)' \ /var/lib/dpkg/available Here is a sample output: ajk@ugh[22:03:04]:~/project/grep-dctrl$ ./grep-dctrl -F Maintainer -s \ Package,Version ajk@debian.org /var/lib/dpkg/available Package: malaga-doc Version: 4.2.5-1 Package: chase Version: 0.3.1-2 Package: libmalaga-dev Version: 4.2.5-1 Package: libmalaga1 Version: 4.2.5-1 Package: malaga-bin Version: 4.2.5-1 Package: mixal Version: 1.08-2 ajk@ugh[22:03:35]:~/project/grep-dctrl$ The utility is ready for wider testing except that I haven't yet written any documentation for it. I'm thinking of packaging it once the docs are ready. Does anybody have an objection (for example: hey A-J, there already is such a program; or hey A-J, the program is useless because ...)? Does anybody have any other comments? I'm licensing the program under the GNU GPL. Antti-Juhani -- %%% Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho % gaia@iki.fi % http://www.iki.fi/gaia/ %%% "Fight them without becoming them." (J. Michael Straczynski: Babylon 5, 3rd Season)
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