Bug#201197: acknowledged by developer (Re: Bug#201197: plus sign doesn't override conflicts)
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Niall Young wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jul 2003, Debian Bug Tracking System wrote:
>
> > This is an automatic notification regarding your Bug report
> > #201197: plus sign doesn't override conflicts,
> > which was filed against the apt package.
> >
> > It has been closed by one of the developers, namely
> > Adam Heath <doogie@debian.org>.
> >
> > Their explanation is attached below. If this explanation is
> > unsatisfactory and you have not received a better one in a separate
> > message then please contact the developer, by replying to this email.
>
> Have emailed Adam several times with no reply, his response contradicts
> the man page for apt-get or I'm completely off the mark here. Can
> someone confirm that the +- feature does override conflict resolution?:
How many times, and when, did you mail me? I was moving this weekend, and my
system was offline. I won't have a connection at home for a few more weeks,
so debian work will be spotty, at best(basically, this is no change from my
current debian work).
A few days waiting is not something you should be complaining about.
> > > "Similarly a plus sign can be used to designate a package to install. These
> > > latter features may be used to override decisions made by apt-get's
> > > conflict resolution system."
> > >
> > > Appending a plus sign doesn't seem to override the conflict resolution, e.g.
> > >
> > > # apt-get -u install sendmail+
> > > Reading Package Lists... Done
> > > Building Dependency Tree... Done
> > > The following packages will be REMOVED:
> > > qmail
> > > The following NEW packages will be installed:
> > > sendmail
> > > 0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 14 not upgraded.
> > > Need to get 918kB of archives. After unpacking 1327kB will be used.
> >
> > What conflict resolution is there? You told apt to install sendmail, which it
> > is doing. Doing so requires that it remove qmail. Your + does nothing to
> > change that.
>
> I'm confused then, conflict resolution to me would be parsing the
> Conflicts line and finding that mail-transport-agent conflicts with
> sendmail, thereby uninstalling qmail. If not, what is the man page
> actually suggesting?
Um, are you dense? Apt is doing exactly what you just described.
There was no magical decision here. You told apt to install sendmail. A +
doesn't change apt's decision, because apt didn't decide to install sendmail;
you did.
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