Bug#159182: apt-get remove --purge doesn't purge if the package es removed

[Paolo Benvenuto <donpaolo@gsi.it>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.5.4
Severity: normal

If I remove a package without purging it, then I can't purge it any more, because apt-get
tells me:

root@misiongenovesa:/home/paolo# apt-get remove --purge lprng
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package lprng is not installed, so not removed
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6  not upgraded.

It seems that apt-get should purge the package

-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux misiongenovesa 2.2.19 #1 dom mag 26 14:14:33 EGST 2002 i686
Locale: LANG=it_IT.ISO-8859-1, LC_CTYPE=it_IT

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.2.5-11.1  GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2       1:2.95.4-11 The GNU stdc++ library