Bug#117915: apt-cache crashes when it can't access /var/lib/apt/lists/*

[Guido Guenther <agx@debian.org>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.5.4
Severity: normal

"apt-cache search whatever" dies with a SIGSEGV when it's not able to
read the files in /var/lib/apt/lists/* and not run as root. Last lines
of "strace apt-cache search apt":

stat64("/var/lib/apt/lists/honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de_mirror_ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-i386_Packages", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0600, st_size=5704422, ...}) = 0
stat64("/var/lib/apt/lists/honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de_mirror_ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-i386_Packages", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0600, st_size=5704422, ...}) = 0
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de_mirror_ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-i386_Packages", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
munmap(0x40289000, 6295552)             = 0
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) ---
+++ killed by SIGSEGV +++

 -- Guido

-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux flip 2.4.8-flip #1 Tue Aug 14 19:07:06 CEST 2001 i686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6                  2.2.4-4           GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 1:2.95.4-0.011006 The GNU stdc++ library