listing updated packages only

[Panu Matilainen]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Panu Matilainen wrote:

> 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.

Forgot to mention: one possibility is to use a custom Lua script for the 
purpose, that way you can format the messages as you please, perform 
arbitrary custom actions etc.

 	- Panu -