Bug#46091: apt: unhelpful error

[Adrian Bridgett <bridgett@hursley.ibm.com>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.3.13

from dselect:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  debconf gpart 
49 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/29.7MB of archives. After unpacking 232kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
E: Internal Error, Couldn't configure a pre-depend

A package would be nice!

~$ sudo apt-get -s upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages have been kept back
  gnome-core gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-session gnome-terminal
  gnome-utils realplayer 
48 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
Inst perl-5.005-suid [perl-5.005 on perl-base] []
E: Internal Error, Couldn't configure a pre-depend

Aha! However I think there is still a problem:

Package: perl-5.005
Priority: important
Section: interpreters
Installed-Size: 5168
Maintainer: Darren Stalder <torin@daft.com>
Architecture: i386
Version: 5.005.03-4
Replaces: data-dumper, perl, perl-5.005-base
Provides: data-dumper, perl5
Depends: perl-5.005-base (= 5.005.03-4)
Pre-Depends: perl-base (>= 5.004.04-2) | perl5-base
Recommends: perl-5.005-doc (= 5.005.03-4)
Suggests: perl-5.005-suid, perl-5.005-debug

Okay, this is the predepend.
~$ dpkg -s perl-base        
Package: perl-base
Status: purge ok not-installed
Priority: required
Section: base

not installed, now lets check perl5-base:


~$ dpkg -s perl-5.005-base
Package: perl-5.005-base
Status: install ok installed
Priority: required
Section: base
Installed-Size: 1143
Maintainer: Darren Stalder <torin@daft.com>
Source: perl-5.005
Version: 5.005.03-3
Replaces: perl-base
Provides: perl5-base
Pre-Depends: libc6 (>= 2.1), libgdbmg1
Suggests: perl-5.005
Conflicts: perl-base (<< 5.004.05), perl


Hmmm - that's installed.  The pre-dependency _is_ satisified. 
Is the bug in apt, or is apt covering for a bug in dpkg?

Cheers

Adrian

Adrian Bridgett <bridgett@hursley.ibm.com>
Internal: 7-245528  External: 01962-815528
DM2E8, Hursley Park, UK    (Mailpoint 206)