Bug#611729: apt: apt-get does not always mark a package as manually installed

[Marius Vollmer <marius.vollmer@nokia.com>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.8.10
Severity: normal
Tags: patch

[ This bug has been found in Maemo's version of apt, absed on 0.7.25.3,
  and has only confirmed to be present in Debian's version of apt by
  reading the code.  Thus, I don't include any information about my
  Debian installation.
]

Apt-get does not always mark a package as manually installed when it
should.  I only have a Gedanken Test Case for reproduction, sorry, but
it should be simple.

Consider this scenario:

  Package: a
  Depends: b

  Package: b

Neither a nor b are installed.  Then

  $ apt-get install a b

will not mark b as manually installed.

The culprit is this code in cmd-line/apt-get.cc, function TryToInstall:

    // see if we need to fix the auto-mark flag
    // e.g. apt-get install foo
    // where foo is marked automatic
    if (State.Install() == false &&
        (State.Flags & pkgCache::Flag::Auto) &&
        _config->FindB("APT::Get::ReInstall",false) == false &&
        _config->FindB("APT::Get::Only-Upgrade",false) == false &&
        _config->FindB("APT::Get::Download-Only",false) == false)
    {
       ioprintf(c1out,_("%s set to manually installed.\n"),
      	  Pkg.FullName(true).c_str());
       Cache->GetDepCache()->MarkAuto(Pkg,false);
       AutoMarkChanged++;
    }

This code will not "fix the auto-mark flag" when State.Install() is
false.  However, planning to install a will produce the state where
State.Install() is true for b, and State.Flags for b will include Auto.

The following variant of the code should make this work:

    // see if we need to fix the auto-mark flag 
    // e.g. apt-get install foo 
    // where foo is marked automatic
    if((State.Flags & pkgCache::Flag::Auto) &&
       _config->FindB("APT::Get::ReInstall",false) == false &&
       _config->FindB("APT::Get::Only-Upgrade",false) == false &&
       _config->FindB("APT::Get::Download-Only",false) == false)
    {
       Cache->GetDepCache()->MarkAuto(Pkg,false);
       AutoMarkChanged++;

       // If we are not actually installing the package right
       // now because it is already installed, at least
       // mention that we are changing its auto flag.
       if (State.Install() == false)
          ioprintf(c1out,_("%s set to manually installed.\n"),
          	  Pkg.FullName(true).c_str());
    }

[ No patch since I didn't even compile this. ]

The logic behind this change is that it shouldn't matter whether or not
State.Install() is true when deciding whether to fix the auto-mark.  All
we really want is to supress the message in the normal case where a
package is about to be installed.