On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 12:03:39AM -0300, Pablo Lorenzzoni wrote:
> Hello!
>
> That's exactly what I've already tried. :-) See... I've reported that in my
> previous email. The problem is that it gives the complete dependency list
> (and I can parse that), but I couldn't figure out how to discover what a
> virtual package (reported between < and > by apt-cache) depends on.
>
Hi Pablo,
Man, not sure how I missed that, sorry. If I've got this right virtual
packages don't really have dependancies. Instead they can be provided by
any number of a set of packages already in the archive. I ran 'apt-cache
showpkg awk' and noted that there are no Dependancies: or Provides:
items but there is a slew of Reverse Provides: which might be how the
virtual packages keep track of packages that Provide: the virtual
package name. A really good example of this is <xserver> which has a
huge list of xservers in the Reverse Provides: list. If you run
'apt-cache showpkg mawk | less' you should notice a set of Provides for
awk with version numbers. So in effect virtual packages have no Depends:
information, which is why your script doesn't return anything. Not sure
how you would script that, the output of showpkg does not prepend each
listed package with the control field name. I wonder why... Oh well,
hope this helps, and anyone is free to correct me. Its far too early for
my brain to be fully online.
Luck,
--
Matthew P. McGuire <gray AT shadowglade.net> 1024D/E21C0E88
CB82 7859 26B2 95E3 1328 5198 D57A D072 E21C 0E88
When choice matters, choose Debian.
