marked_delete and "apt-mark remove"

[Jack Bates <2g567n@nottheoilrig.com>]

Where does the StateCache::Delete() i.e. StateCache::Mode data get read 
from?

I'm trying to debug a problem with the Python marked_delete property -- 
I expect it to be True after "apt-mark remove", but if I run:

  $ apt-mark remove python-apt

And then the following Python code:

  >>> import apt
  >>> cache = apt.Cache()
  >>> package = cache['python-apt']
  >>> package.marked_delete
  False
  >>>

It's False. (Is this a known issue? or the wrong expectation?)

I traced marked_delete as far as StateCache::Delete() (in libapt-pkg, 
depcache.h) but then I got lost ... Where does that data get loaded from?

(Assuming marked_delete ought to be True) I suppose the issue could lie 
in either libapt-pkg or the Python bindings -- but I suspect libapt-pkg.

I confirmed that "apt-mark remove" does successfully update 
/var/lib/dpkg/status and "dpkg --get-selections":

  $ dpkg --get-selections | grep python-apt
  python-apt                                      deinstall
  $

"aptitude search" also picks up the updated status:

  $ aptitude search ^python-apt$
  id  python-apt                      - Python interface to libapt-pkg
  $