frequently, i want to get the version number of a command to see if it's new enough for what i need, but there doesn't seem to be any GNU-wide standard for that. for example, if i want to know what version of "ls" i have, i can do: $ ls --version ls (GNU coreutils) 6.9 Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Written by Richard Stallman and David MacKenzie. $ well, that's useful, but if all i'm after is the version number, i have to run that through head, and strip the first part of the line to get to the value i want, which is just "6.9". "gcc" at least supports the "-dumpversion" option: $ gcc -dumpversion 4.1.2 $ is there a reason there's no single GNU-standard option that simply gives you that version number, so you can avoid all the head'ing and sed'ing to get to it? rday -- ======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA http://crashcourse.ca ========================================================================
