diff --git ocamlbuild/findlib.ml ocamlbuild/findlib.ml
index f83ea56..7b4022b 100644
--- ocamlbuild/findlib.ml
+++ ocamlbuild/findlib.ml
@@ -112,8 +112,24 @@ let rec query name =
       | Lexers.Error (s,_) ->
           error (Cannot_parse_query (name, s))
 
+let split_nl s =
+  let x = ref [] in
+  let rec go s =
+    let pos = String.index s '\n' in
+    x := (String.before s pos)::!x;
+    go (String.after s (pos + 1))
+  in
+  try
+    go s
+  with Not_found -> !x
+
+let before_space s =
+  try
+    String.before s (String.index s ' ')
+  with Not_found -> s
+
 let list () =
-  run_and_parse Lexers.blank_sep_strings "%s list | cut -d' ' -f1" ocamlfind
+  List.map before_space (split_nl & run_and_read "%s list" ocamlfind)
 
 (* The closure algorithm is easy because the dependencies are already closed
 and sorted for each package. We only have to make the union. We could also