Bug#45575: acknowledged by developer (Fixed)

[Francesco Potorti` <pot@gnu.org>]

   >    % dpkg -i -force-depend /var/tmp/linbot_1.0b9-1.deb
   >    dpkg: conflicting actions --field and --install
   > Nothing better?  :-)
   That error message is completely correct

Sure.  This does not mean that it is useful.

   I fail to see how things can get better.

That is strange.

For me, that error message has the same informative content as an error
message like:
  dpkg: error #340981

That is, it provides a mean for reporting the problem to a developer or
a dpkg administrator, but provides no information the user, apart from
an implicit suggestion to try and look the documentation to see if that
error number is listed.

But in this case, if I look in the docs, I get no more clues.

The problem here is that no hint is given as what the problem really is,
that is, that a missing `-' makes dpkg interpret -f as the option
--field.  

I am a programmer, and I know very well that it would not be easy to
make things better, but that is barely a reason to fail to see how
dpkg should respend.  For example the following message would certainly
be better:
  dpkg: -i and -f are conflicting options


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