Re: check if a newer version of a package is available

[Lars Nooden <lars.nooden@gmail.com>]

On Sat, 14 Feb 2015, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote:

> 1) How do I check if a newer version of a package is available from a
> perl script?

I'm not sure there but my guess would be to use one of the CPAN modules
related to APT, perhaps Linux::APT

> 2) Generalizing the previous question, is there any way to get the
> version number of the package to which it will be upgraded to had I
> run "sudo apt-get install PACKAGE"?

"apt-cache" would do that.  For xterm,

  apt-cache policy xterm

or something like this

  apt-cache policy xterm  \
  | awk '$1 == "Installed:" { installed = $2 } \
         $1 == "Candidate:" { candidate = $2 } \
    END { if ( installed < candidate ) { print candidate } \
          else { print 0 } }'


Regards,
/Lars