regarding the output of dpkg -l and what does it mean exactly

[Walter Tautz <wtautz@math.uwaterloo.ca>]

If one does:


dpkg -l '*telnet*'
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                    Version                 Description
+++-=======================-=======================-==============================================================
ii  libnet-telnet-perl      3.01-2                  Script telnetable connections
pn  ssltelnet               <none>                  (no description available)
ii  telnet                  0.16-4                  The telnet client.
pn  telnet-ssl              <none>                  (no description available)
un  telnet98                <none>                  (no description available)
pn  telnetd                 <none>                  (no description available)
pn  telnetd-ssl             <none>                  (no description available)



now this is fairly clear, ii presumably means install, installed whereas un means
uninstalled? and pn means it is purged not installed? does pn mean it was installed
previously and then removed. how are these short cryptic status indications related to
the stuff:

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                    Version                 Description

Is this documented in detail, i.e. dpkg have  a detailed description
of its output formats?

-walter