Bug#277536: /usr/bin/apt-cache: . and * in regexp
On Wed, 2004-10-20 at 19:53 +0100, Florian Schlichting wrote:
[...]
> I may not be the most knowledgeable when it comes to regexp, but
> shouldn't the first command give the more extensive, global output (ie,
> shouldn't it find the libglade2-dev package)??
No, it shouldn't, as libglade2-dev doesn't match "libglad followed by
zero or more occurrences of e followed by -dev". Ok, so neither does
libglade0-dev at first glance, but see below.
> flo@tigerbay:~$ apt-cache search libglade*-dev
> libglade0-dev - Development files for libglade
> flo@tigerbay:~$ apt-cache search libglade.-dev
> libglade0-dev - Development files for libglade
> libglade2-dev - Development files for libglade
The regexps are fine and producing exactly the correct output; you're
hitting an undocumented feature of `apt-cache search'. It's definitely
a feature, as there are comments in the source code indicating it's
supposed to happen. :-)
Specifically, search doesn't just examine package names, but also
virtual package names. liibglade0-dev Provides: libglade-dev, which
matches the first regexp. Try `apt-cache search mail-tran*', for
instance.
Regards,
Adam
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