On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 11:23:59AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
Second, this whole thread has been about the undocumented feature of apt (but not apt-get) that allows you to specify a pathname to a .deb file on an "apt install" command. Nobody was quite sure how it worked, because it's undocumented.
Works fine in apt-get also. Same code. It's also a bit more complicated, because it will prefer a repository version if you're trying to install something that is actually in the respository.
pathname begins with "/" or "./" or "../". This seems like a strange choice to me (I would've gone with "contains a slash", because there's precedent for that, and because it allows pathnames like "foo/bar.deb" which the current code does not allow).
/ in an apt parameter already indicates the target release. E.g., apt-get install ant/stretch-backports