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Re: apt-get wierdness: when 6 is equal to 9



On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, Joey Hess wrote:

> maintains more complex package list information than can be represented
> in dpkg's available file (especially if you have apt set to use multiple
> distributons at the same time, etc). 

Yeap, pretty much.

> I find this very unsatisfactory. Yes, generating an available file
> whenever apt-get update is run may not be technically perfect, and the

Well, here is my rant..

>  * tasksel
>  * grep-available
>  * dpkg -p
> 
> That should _just work_ in a high-quality Debian system.

You notice that all but dpkg -p were written after APT? They were written
with full knowledge that that available file would be inaccurate on 99% of
their users systems. They could have been written to use apt-cache on
systems that are using APT and this would be a non-problem.

In fact, as long as APT is involved the only way to have things just work
is to call 'apt-cache dumpavail' and parse that. That function accounts
for all variables and presents the same selections that apt-get would see.

The reason these tools don't do this is some IMHO mis-guided aversion to
assuming APT is being used. After all, there are 2 people out there who
don't use it.. Similarly checking if the APT is selected in dselect would
be inelegent :P

The only way I can see to compromise around this is if someone changes
dpkg. Yes, the limited interface to it's methods is unsuitable and must be
extended.  I suggest that someone cook up a patch to dpkg that changes it
to effectively popen the script /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/*/get-available and
parses that instead of the available file. Dpkg would also need an way to
dump the available file to stdout.. 

Jason





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