Re: aptitude search: What exactly does `~S` (aka `~narrow`) do?
On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 6:21 PM, Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Feb 2015, Kynn Jones wrote:
>> The [documentation][1] for `~S` says:
>> > ?narrow(filter, pattern), ~S filter pattern
>> >
>> > This term “narrows” the search to package versions matching
>> > filter. In particular, it matches any package version which
>> > matches both filter and pattern. The string value of the match is
>> > the string value of pattern.
>>
>> I have not been able to find any definition in this documentation of
>> what it means by the term "filter", and how this term differs from the
>> term "pattern". Therefore, it looks like the paragraph above is,
>> strictly speaking, meaningless.
>
> The critical bit that you're missing from this paragraph is "versions".
>
> See
> http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/projects/aptitude/doc/en/ch02s03s03.html
> for details.
That was indeed illuminating. Thank you!
(Unfortunately, it says nothing about "filters", let alone how they
differ from "patterns".)
>> % aptitude search '~i!~Astable'
>
> This means "installed packages which are not in stable at all".
>
>> % aptitude search '~S~i!~Astable'
>
> This means "installed package where the same version is not available in
> stable"
OK, that's crystal clear and extremely helpful. Thank you very much!
kj
Reply to: