Bug#45389: apt: apt method in dselect does `remove' when `purge' was requested

[Jeff Sheinberg <jeffsh@erols.com>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.3.10slink11

Hi,

There are two related issues here.  According to the apt html
docs, the configure and remove steps in dselect are no longer
necessary, the install step is sufficient - this may be true when
installing a package, but is not so when purging a package.

The second, related issue, which I found to be very confusing at
first, is that when I mark a package to be purged, then proceed to
the install step, apt will remove the package instead of purging
it.

Here is a transcript of my session to purge lsof-2.0.35,

    106 root ~ # dselect
    Reading Package Lists... Done
    Building Dependency Tree... Done
    The following packages will be REMOVED:
      lsof-2.0.35 
    0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not
    upgraded.
    Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 302kB will be freed.
    Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
    (Reading database ... 28697 files and directories currently
    installed.)
    Removing lsof-2.0.35 ...
    Do you want to erase the downloaded .deb files (Y/n)
    Press enter to continue.
    
    Reading Package Lists... Done
    Building Dependency Tree... Done
    0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not
    upgraded.
    Do you want to erase the downloaded .deb files (Y/n)
    Press enter to continue.
    
    Reading Package Lists... Done
    Building Dependency Tree... Done
    0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not
    upgraded.
    Do you want to erase the downloaded .deb files (Y/n)
    Press enter to continue.
    
    running dpkg --pending --configure ...
    running dpkg --pending --remove ...
    (Reading database ... 28665 files and directories currently
    installed.)
    Removing lsof-2.0.35 ...
    Purging configuration files for lsof-2.0.35 ...
    
             
Thanks,
-- 
Jeff Sheinberg  <jeffsh@erols.com>


-- System Information
Debian Release: 2.1
Kernel Version: Linux eden-hda7 2.0.36 #2 Thu Jun 24 19:46:13 EDT 1999 i586 unknown

Versions of the packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6           2.0.7.19981211 GNU C Library: shared libraries
ii  libstdc++2.9    2.91.60-5      The GNU stdc++ library (egcs version)