Bug#258425: Handle Recommends on upgrade

[Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.5.25
Severity: wishlist

  apt only checks a package's Recommendations the first time you install
it:

[depcache.cc]
      /* Check if this dep should be consider for install. If it is a user
         defined important dep and we are installed a new package then
         it will be installed. Otherwise we only worry about critical deps */
      if (IsImportantDep(Start) == false)
         continue;
      if (Pkg->CurrentVer != 0 && Start.IsCritical() == false)
         continue;

  Ideally it would also check packages that are being upgraded, by
testing whether the previous version of the package had a similar
recommendation.  Obviously this is somewhat subject to corner cases, but
you could probably approximate it by testing whether the previous
version recommended the same package name. (ie, ignoring virtual packages
and any version requirements)

 It would be nice if this were be part of the policy, but that would
probably require adding a new virtual method and/or breaking the ABI.

  Daniel

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.6
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US)

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6                       2.3.2.ds1-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgcc1                     1:3.3.4-2    GCC support library
ii  libstdc++5                  1:3.3.4-2    The GNU Standard C++ Library v3

-- no debconf information