Long lines listing dpkg

I use to store a list of packages previous to an update and before it in order to mantain documentation about the changes made to each system I administer.

To do this I use to dump the following information prior and before the upgrade of packages:

• ls -l /var/cache/apt/archives


• dpkg -l

The problem is that dpkg -l shows the result well under console shell but cuts the output to 80 columns when the output of the command is redirected to a file.

To solve it is so easy, you only need to change the following environment variable to a value greater than 80 with a command like that:

 # export COLUMNS=120
 # dpkg -l > dpkg_l.list

That give us the report without that column shrink