Re: Is there an easy way to get the latest version number of a source package that is available?

[Tim Woodall <debianuser@woodall.me.uk>]

On Mon, 27 Jun 2022, Roberto C. S?nchez wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 10:44:25PM +0100, Tim Woodall wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Jun 2022, Roberto C. S?nchez wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 03:31:01PM +0100, Tim Woodall wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > apt-get --only-source --download-only source <package>
> > > >
> > > > will download the latest version of the source package.
> > > >
> > > > Is there a one liner that will give me the version of the package
> > > > (including the epoch) without downloading the package and parsing the
> > > > dsc?
> > > If you are not opposed to installing the devscripts package, then you
> > > can do this:
> > >
> > > $ rmadison -u debian -a source -s unstable firefox-esr
> > > firefox-esr | 91.10.0esr-1  | unstable   | source
> The usefulness of 'apt-cache madison' versus 'rmadison' depends on what
> you mean by "lastest available version".  If you mean "latest available
> version from the sources configured on my system", then 'apt-cache
> madison' will do just that.  If you mean "latest available version in
> the Debian archive", then you need 'rmadison'.

This was really useful, thank you. In the end I stuck with my previous
apt-cache showsrc parsing but apt-cache madison has just made it really
easy to track down a bug where that wasn't working (because of a
copy-pasta error that meant I had Suite: bullseye configured instead of
buster but only for the debsrc (and not for security updates which was
correct)