grep-available

[Nano Nano <40119.nospam@comcast.net>]

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."