Cannot get why
$ apt-cache policy foo
N: Unable to locate package foo
but
$ apt-cache policy foo 2>&1 | grep .
is empty.
Where in the latter call am I doing the wrong assumption?
The original task: I need to process the apt-cache policy
output presumably 🙂
UPD:
foo
used in my example may be substituted with any package name that does not exist in your apt-get
index.
UPD 2:
there is an answer with a workaround. Additional +50
bounty will be awarded to anyone who explains why the 2>&1
solution does not work.
Best Answer
If stdout is not a tty (i.e. it's a regular file or a pipe) and if no
--quiet
option has been specified,apt-cache
acts as if you had passed it--quiet=1
. A workaround is to pass it a--quiet=0
option.