Re: dpkg -s and architecture

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Dale Scheetz writes ("dpkg -s and architecture"):
> I have been working on a script to do an ordered upgrade of the base
> packages and have run into several snags.
> In order to decide whether a package has already been installed, I check
> with dpkg -s to get the version, tack it onto the path and package name,
> add the .deb to create a string I can compare with the file name of the
> package in the archive.

Note the recent decision about parseable filenames.  The filename in
the archive wioll be (but ins't yet):
 replacehyphenswithunderscores($packagename)-$version.$arch.deb

> The introduction of the architecture into the package file name has
> complicated this comparison. I have been able to work around it by having
> two strings to check: /path/package-ver.deb and
> /path/package-ver.i386.deb. I also realize that the i386 portion of the
> name is only for my architecture. I could use the print-architecture
> feature of dpkg to get this right on other machines, but this really
> doesn't really fix it.
> Is it possible for dpkg to report architecture (and possibly section) with
> a dpkg -s? On the other hand, is there anywhere now, that the full content
> of the package control file is kept for reference?

Architecture of what ?  The package as installed on the system ?
That's hardly relevant (though I think dpkg keeps it).  Architecture
of the .deb file in the archive ?  That's in the Packages file, of
course, just like the filename and everything else ...

Ian.