Bug#602573: apt: Acquire::Languages ignored (in some locales)

[Jakub Wilk <jwilk@debian.org>]

* David Kalnischkies <kalnischkies+debian@gmail.com>, 2010-11-06, 13:00:
> > LC_MESSAGES="POSIX"
>
> to clarify that a bit:
> This setting is exposed to APT as LC_MESSAGES="C" and the
> manpage apt.conf says: "If LC_MESSAGES is set to "C" only the
> Translation-en file (if available) will be used."
>
> > # apt-config dump | grep Acquire::Languages
> > Acquire::Languages "none";
>
> The next sentence is "To force apt to use no Translation file use
> the setting Acquire::Languages=none."
> So yes, your use case should work - its just not handled properly
> as the special C-mode is handled before the configuration is
> considered which is okay for all, but the "none" case.

I'd say it's wrong (or at least counter intuive) for other cases as 
well. Consider this example:

# rm -f /var/lib/apt/lists/*-[a-z][a-z]

# LC_ALL=C apt-get update -o Acquire::Languages=pl | grep Translation
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ unstable/contrib Translation-en
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ unstable/main Translation-en
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ unstable/non-free Translation-en
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ experimental/contrib Translation-en
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ experimental/main Translation-en
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ experimental/non-free Translation-en

# rm -f /var/lib/apt/lists/*-[a-z][a-z]

# LC_ALL=de_DE.utf8 apt-get update -o Acquire::Languages=pl | grep Translation
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ unstable/contrib Translation-pl
Hole:1 http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ unstable/main Translation-pl [306 kB]
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ unstable/non-free Translation-pl
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ experimental/contrib Translation-pl
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ experimental/main Translation-pl
Ign http://ftp.pl.debian.org/debian/ experimental/non-free Translation-pl

So the same command downloads English translation in POSIX locale, and 
Polish translation in German locale. Now, that doesn't make sense to me.

> Note through that you can see downloads of Translation files even if
> you have LANG=C and none set correctly (and APT interpreting it 
> correctly): The reason is that APT will download Translation files for 
> languages it has previously downloaded

Yeah, I noticed that while trying to understand what's going on here.  
It's not something I'm happy about either...

--
Jakub Wilk