listing updated packages only

[Panu Matilainen]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Vincent Danen wrote:

> I was looking for an option in apt-cache or apt-get that would allow me
> to list packages that apt wanted to update.  For instance, as part of
> the daily security routine in Annvix, I update the urpmi medium(s) and
> then report, per-media, what packages are available for upgrade in a
> cronjob so the admin gets an email saying they're behind on
> such-and-such packages.
>
> I can't seem to find something like this for apt, however.  The closest
> thing I see is "apt-get upgrade -s" but it's a little messy.  I could
> clean it up myself by parsing it for the email, but was wondering if
> there was another option available.

The "simulate" mode (-s) is indeed noisy and occasionally gives nasty 
looking false alerts about conflicts in packages etc. Maybe someday 
somebody will get around to fix it...

There's --check-only which .. hmm, doesn't seem to be documented anywhere, 
sigh. Anyway that's probably the closest thing to what you want, at the 
moment at least.

 	- Panu -