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Help with scripting APT / dpkg in Debian 4

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Old 10-20-2008
Help with scripting APT / dpkg in Debian 4
Hello,

I am attempting to write a (bash) shell script that will do some basic reporting based on the APT utilities and dpkg.

I need the following in the report:
Packages installed
(COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l | grep '/^ii/' > packages_installed)

Packages not installed
I suppose that I can do
COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l > packages_available
and then use cmp or diff to print a list of the differences which should just be the packages not installed

Packages with security updates
I'm drawing a blank on this one, maybe restricting sources to
deb Debian -- Security Information stable/updates main
and printing the output

Packages with updates
I think it's just
apt-get -u upgrade > packages_updates

Packages with new versions (including the distro)
apt-cache show?

The script should then print out in a legible form the different categories from the files created. I realize that there are some GUI's out there that do basically the same thing but this will run on servers. Ideally it should be dependent on the "standard" apt utilities.

Thanks for any input!
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LEARN ABOUT LINUX

dpkg-trigger

dpkg-trigger(1) 						    dpkg suite							   dpkg-trigger(1)

NAME

       dpkg-trigger - a package trigger utility

SYNOPSIS

       dpkg-trigger [option...] trigger-name
       dpkg-trigger [option...] command

DESCRIPTION

       dpkg-trigger is a tool to explicitly activate triggers and check for its support on the running dpkg.

       This  can be used by maintainer scripts in complex and conditional situations where the file triggers, or the declarative activate triggers
       control file directive, are insufficiently rich. It can also be used for testing and by system administrators (but note that  the  triggers
       won't actually be run by dpkg-trigger).

       Unrecognised trigger name syntaxes are an error for dpkg-trigger.

COMMANDS

       --check-supported
	      Check  if  the running dpkg supports triggers (usually called from a postinst). Will exit 0 if a triggers-capable dpkg has run, or 1
	      with an error message to stderr if not. Normally, however, it is better just to activate the desired trigger with dpkg-trigger.

       -h, --help
	      Show the usage message and exit.

       --version
	      Show the version and exit.

OPTIONS

       --admindir=dir
	      Change the location of the dpkg database. The default location is /var/lib/dpkg.

       --by-package=package
	      Override trigger awaiter (normally set by dpkg through the DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_PACKAGE environment variable of the maintainer  scripts,
	      naming the package to which the script belongs, and this will be used by default).

       --no-await
	      This option arranges that the calling package T (if any) need not await the processing of this trigger; the interested package(s) I,
	      will not be added to T's trigger processing awaited list and T's status is unchanged.  T may be considered installed even  though  I
	      may not yet have processed the trigger.

       --no-act
	      Just test, do not actually change anything.

ENVIRONMENT

       DPKG_ADMINDIR
	      If set and the --admindir option has not been specified, it will be used as the dpkg data directory.

SEE ALSO

       dpkg(1), deb-triggers(5), /usr/share/doc/dpkg-dev/triggers.txt.gz.

Debian Project							    2009-03-15							   dpkg-trigger(1)