On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 02:45:51PM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> And the status file is not a public interface. It's a file used by dpkg.
> If tomorrow dpkg supports an optional SQLite internal database through a
> plugin, dpkg-query will continue to work but your access to the status
> file will not. (This is unlikely to happen any time soon, but you get the
> idea)
Is there a way to ask dpkg-query to dump all the information contained
in /var/lib/dpkg/status without either having to: (1) list all fields
explicitly (using --show + --showformat) or (2) list all package names
(using --status)?
I co-maintain some utilities that parse /var/lib/dpkg/status and I'd be
glad to migrate them to dpkg-query, but both solutions above have
drawbacks. (1) is not future proof and will miss the addition of new
fields unless the utility is updated; (2) has a race condition in asking
the currently installed packages and providing them to --status (beside
being a horrible hack in requiring to list all package names as
arguments). Am I missing something?
Having the ability to pass a package (wildcard) pattern to --show would
be enough to solve this problem.
Do you want a bug report about this?
Thanks to the mighty dpkg maintainers!
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Quando anche i santi ti voltano le spalle, | . |. I've fans everywhere
ti resta John Fante -- V. Capossela .......| ..: |.......... -- C. Adams
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