>> On a related note... I do "pkg_info | grep whatever" a lot, and I expect
>> that everyone else does too.
>
>BTW, pkg_info -e 'whatever*' should is much faster and saves some typing :)


but it doesn't do what they're asking. They want to check for the presence
of a general package without having to:
a) know what exact version it is
b) having to scan through the full pkg_info

When you do a pkg_info -e, you get:
a) just another prompt if you don'e exactly match the pkg_name with version
b) the name of the pkg that you just entered if you entered it correctly.

So if you do a pkg_info -e perl, you just get another prompt, whether it's
installed or not.

If you do a pkg_info | grep perl, you get the one-line entry for perl if
you have it installed.

(of course alias pkg_grep pkg_info | grep should suffice ;-)

HTH
Mike
Bikers don't *DO* taglines.