On 2021-07-27 at 07:25, Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 03:38:31PM +1200, Richard Hector wrote: >> But experience suggests that A means 'automatically installed' (and p stands >> for purged, which linguistically doesn't really mean 'maybe has been purged; >> maybe has never been installed'). > > See, it's *not just me*! Nobody else can find the section that says > what the letters mean either. Well, OK, not "nobody", but damned few > people know about it. > > I know that "search" comes alphabetically before "why", but the most > common use of aptitude by people who only use it for one thing is > "aptitude why". So, when there is *nothing* at all in the "why" > section that documents what the letters mean, most people will simply > assume it's not anywhere in the man page. > > I would suggest taking the paragraph that describes what the letters > mean, which is currently under the "search" subcommand, and doing two > things to it: > > 1) Reformat it as a table. > 2) Move it to a separate section, and drop a sentence in the "search" > subcommand pointing to it. > > Then, add that same sentence to the "why" subcommand, and to any other > subcommands that have the same single-letter output indicators. Sounds worth a wishlist bug report, to me (against whatever package it is that contains the file which includes the text in question). If you can come up with a patch that implements this, that would make it *far* more likely that the requested change would get implemented. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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