Bug#1108505: apt outputs logical-or vertical bar in recommended packages section
On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 03:02:44PM -0700, E Shattow wrote:
> Package: apt
> Version: 3.0.2
> Severity: normal
> X-Debbugs-Cc: lucent@gmail.com
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> `apt install git devscripts` in a clean trixie dist pbuilder environment and
> see this:
>
> ...
> Recommended packages:
> dctrl-tools lintian unzip
> pristine-tar libxstring-perl
> dput lzip wget less
> libdata-dump-perl
> | dupload python3-apt | curl ssh-
> client libhtml-form-perl
> libdistro-info-perl python3-debian debian-keyring gnupg
> libhttp-daemon-perl
> libgit-wrapper-perl python3-magic debian-tag2upload-keyring
> libgpg-error-l10n libmailtools-perl
> liblist-compare-perl python3-unidiff equivs
> libhtml-format-perl python3-argcomplete
> libstring-shellquote-perl python3-xdg libgitlab-api-v4-perl libio-
> compress-brotli-perl sopv-doc
> licensecheck strace libsoap-lite-perl
> libnamespace-clean-perl
> ...
>
> Are those logical-or vertical bar in output intentional? Looks like a parsing
> bug to me, because of the column display the logical condition has lost context
> and does not make sense to show the user. If you want to show these in a
> meaningful way then after all the n-columns output of the simple non-logic-
> encumbered keys, have a single-column listing one-per-line of the more
> complicated keys.
I can understand how say
A1 | A2 B C
D E F
reads easier, but if you look at
A B C1
| C2 D
vs.
A C1 D
B |C2
or
A |C2
B D
C1
It's not immediately clear one is better just because it wraps on
lines instead of columns; the alternatives were never attached
and always broken.
In fact, I believe the columnar format here is actually more
readable.
--
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