Because --list-versions & --show-version require a single object (which also happens to be a primary key) rather than a list.
I'm certainly not sure what the output of --list-versions should look like against multiple objects, and --show-version makes no sense against multiple objects IMHO.

If you want to achieve this, you need to handle this in your own script/wrapper.
I don't think this makes sense for the db to do for you.

Ian

-----Original Message-----
From: db-wg <db-wg-bounces@ripe.net> On Behalf Of Ronald F. Guilmette via db-wg
Sent: 25 June 2019 23:21
To: Cynthia Revström <me@cynthia.re>
Cc: DB-WG <db-wg@ripe.net>
Subject: Re: [db-wg] --list-versions

In message <CAKw1M3NXXAFLZrRTehzu5SFYiNCABg4vdKQPXgf_As5+vTOOdw@mail.gmail.com>,
=?UTF-8?Q?Cynthia_Revstr=C3=B6m?= <me@cynthia.re> wrote:

>I would assume that is because for some reason netname is not unique,
>If you run whois -h whois.ripe.net CYNTHIA-V6-TEST -r You can see my
>point, 2 inet6num with the same netname.

I understand that a netname can (and often does) correlate to multiple IP address blocks. That fact, by itself, does not clarify why it would either be difficult or impossible to provide the --list-versions and --show-version functionality for netnames.

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