Re: Functional Difference of dpkg --get-selections vs --get-selections "*"
On 2016-06-16 18:36 +0000, Bruce Gates wrote:
> What is the functional difference between dpkg --get-selections and dpkg --get-selections "*"?
>From the manpage:
,----
| --get-selections [package-name-pattern...]
| Get list of package selections, and write it to stdout.
| Without a pattern, non-installed packages (i.e. those which
| have been previously purged) will not be shown.
`----
In most cases the output will be the same, though.
> It seems to me that the first command would find all packages anyway,
> making the wildcard erroneous...perhaps I'm mistaken?
There is a difference if you have selected currently purged packages for
installation, e.g. with "dpkg --set-selections":
,----
| # apt-get install dselect && dselect update && echo "ed install" | dpkg --set-selections
| [...]
| # diff -u <(dpkg --get-selections) <(dpkg --get-selections "*")
| --- /dev/fd/63 2016-06-16 19:36:02.856792917 +0000
| +++ /dev/fd/62 2016-06-16 19:36:02.856792917 +0000
| @@ -31,6 +31,7 @@
| dselect install
| e2fslibs:i386 install
| e2fsprogs install
| +ed install
| fakeroot install
| file install
| findutils install
`----
Old versions of dpkg also used to keep information about packages in the
status file after purging them, but this was changed in dpkg 1.15.4¹.
Cheers,
Sven
¹. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=472208
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