[gentoo-user] eix output for dev-perl/Expect

[Kevin O'Gorman]

I've been fooling around with various tools that I've used elsewhere,
wanting to use them on Gentoo.

I'm puzzled by the output of 'eix' in respect to several, and some
associated odd behavior of
emerge.  I'll use as an example dev-perl/Expect.  It's installed, but I
don't understand what eix
is trying to tell me about it with the [D] at the beginning of the report,
or the "*" associated
with the Available versions strings.

The questions:
    1. what do these mean, and what was interfering with emerge -aDNvu this
morning?
    2. (probably more important) how do I find this out for myself in the
future?

Note: the string "Expect" does not appear in any file in /etc/portage

Here's the output:

treat portage # eix dev-perl/Expect
[D] dev-perl/Expect
     Available versions:  *1.20 *1.21
     Installed versions:  1.21(06:23:49 05/12/08)
     Homepage:            http://search.cpan.org/~rgiersig/
     Description:         Expect for Perl

treat portage #
-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD