TIL: Debian's apt-get satisfy

Debian's APT accepts the syntax apt-get install 'some-package=1.32' to install an exact version of a package. TIL about apt-get satisfy, which lets you ask for a version range, as in:

apt-get satisfy 'some-package (>=1.30)'

I found it useful for a CI script fragment where I don't care if the executor runs Debian or Ubuntu, I only want to ensure that I'm using a recent enough version of some-package.

The syntax is the same as in the Depends: field of a control file. You pretty much have to use quotes to avoid the shell interpreting brackets or redirection characters. Several packages are separated with commas, as in apt-get satisfy 'foo (>=1.8), bar (> 2.3)'.

Remember to use apt-get in scripts, apt comes with the following note:

The apt(8) commandline is designed as an end-user tool and it may change behavior between versions. While it tries not to break backward compatibility this is not guaranteed either if a change seems beneficial for interactive use.

All features of apt(8) are available in dedicated APT tools like apt-get(8) and apt-cache(8) as well. apt(8) just changes the default value of some options (see apt.conf(5) and specifically the Binary scope). So you should prefer using these commands (potentially with some additional options enabled) in your scripts as they keep backward compatibility as much as possible.