Bug#686346: closed by Michael Vogt <mvo@debian.org> (Bug#686346: fixed in apt 0.9.7.5)

[Daniel Hartwig <mandyke@gmail.com>]

On 13 September 2012 23:17, Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> wrote:
> On 2012-09-11 15:36:15 +0000, Debian Bug Tracking System wrote:
>>    [ David Kalnischkies ]
>>    * handle packages without a mandatory architecture (debian-policy §5.3)
>>      by introducing a pseudo-architecture 'none' so that the small group of
>>      users with these packages can get right of them without introducing too
>>      much hassle for other users (Closes: #686346)

> Package 'docbook-mathml' is not installed, so not removed. Did you mean 'docbook-mathml:none'?

This error highlights something: the lack of architecture should not
extend the fullname like that and interfere with locating the package.
?

Is there a reason for introducing this pseudo-arch. rather than using
“I->Pkg.Arch() == 0”?

> so that docbook-mathml would depend on a package that has been
> uninstalled. However if I do this, the system doesn't notice
> this broken dependency, as if docbook-mathml were not installed
> at all (so that I don't need an "apt-get -f install").

Interesting.  Perhaps apt is not aware of the arch-less package now. Compare:

$ apt-cache policy docbook-mathml
$ apt-cache policy docbook-mathml:*
$ dpkg -s docbook-mathml
$ dpkg -C