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In the following question there is a solution to checking for a package prior to installing it:

How do I check if a package is installed on my server?

However, I have found that this does not work for Virtual Packages.

Is there a way to traverse the package name that apt-get automatically select and check for the correct one?

You can use grep-status (package dctrl-tools, not installed by default) to find all installed packages providing some virtual package:

$ grep-status -FProvides,Package -sPackage,Provides,Status awk 

Package: mawk

Provides: awk

Status: install ok installed



Package: gawk

Provides: awk

Status: install ok installed

Apt will not install a virtual package unless there is only one provider for it. If another package depends on a virtual package, it usually also names a real package as an alternative (i.e. build-essential depend on "libc6-dev | libc-dev" - the second being a virtual package).

Virtual packages are not installed, thus you cannot check their status. You can use apt-cache showpkg <pkg-name> to view which packages provide the virtual package, and then check whether any of these are installed.

@FlorianDiesch'answer looks interesting, but I want something without need for any software not installed by default.

I ended up using this:

function check_packages_and_install_if_absent()

{

    for PACKAGENAME

    do

        if

            dpkg -l "$PACKAGENAME" | grep ^ii

        then

            echo "Package $PACKAGENAME is present"

            continue

        fi



        FOUND=""



        while read ACTUALPACKAGENAME

        do

            echo "$PACKAGENAME is a virtual package, that can be provided by $ACTUALPACKAGENAME"



            if

                dpkg -l "$ACTUALPACKAGENAME" | grep ^ii

            then

                echo "Actual package $ACTUALPACKAGENAME is present"

                FOUND=true

                break;

            fi



        done < <( apt-cache showpkg "${PACKAGENAME}" | sed -e '1,/^Reverse Provides: *$/ d' -e 's/ .*$//' | sort | uniq )



        # Using sed to print lines after match

        # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32569032/sed-print-all-lines-after-match#answer-32569573



        if [[ "$FOUND" == "true" ]]

        then

            continue

        fi



        echo "Package $PACKAGENAME is absent, installing"

        sudo apt-get install -y "$PACKAGENAME"

    done

}

You can call it with a list of normal and/or virtual package names:

function check_packages_and_install_if_absent foo bar baz

You can query the database of installed packages for packagename with

dpkg -l packagename   

And you can list all the files in packagename with

dpkg -L packagename

Read man dpkg for more information, like how to use wildcards.