dpkg-awk has a two-letter short option -rs to set record separator, but /usr/share/awk/getlong.awk only allows one-letter short options as arguments to dpkg-awk. The equivalent long option --rec_sep works as advertised.
Attached diff enables two-letter short options for dpkg-awk.
Besides -rs/--rec_sep, there is an undocumented option -of/--outform that also benefits from the patch. However, this option is of little use as all it does is suppress the output of fields not specified explicitly on command line (usually when negating the output fields). I.e. if
dpkg-awk -- ^description
will show all the records from /var/lib/dpkg/status omitting package descriptions then
dpkg-awk -of=x -- ^description
will show only empty lines, one for each record from /var/lib/dpkg/status
The attachment "Enable two-letter short options" of this bug report has been identified as being a patch. The ubuntu-reviewers team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review the patch. In the event that this is in fact not a patch you can resolve this situation by removing the tag 'patch' from the bug report and editing the attachment so that it is not flagged as a patch. Additionally, if you are member of the ubuntu-reviewers team please also unsubscribe the team from this bug report.
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