Version of package installed with apt?

[René Pijlman]

Is there an elegant way to find out what the version of an installed package (say with the apt module) is?

I now have this code to get PostgreSQL's configdir on Debian:

- name: required packages for PostgreSQL

  apt: name={{ item }} state=present

  with_items:

  - postgresql

  - postgresql-client

- name: version of installed PostgeSQL server package

  shell:  dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Version}' postgresql | cut --delimiter=+ --fields=1

  register: pv

  changed_when: False

- name: postgresql version

  set_fact:

    postgresql_version: "{{ pv.stdout }}"

- name: postgresql configdir

  set_fact:

    postgresql_configdir: "/etc/postgresql/{{ postgresql_version }}/main"

But I find the dpkg-query|cut a bit ugly. Is there a better way?