Hi,
On Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 03:49 Julian Andres Klode <
jak@debian.org> wrote:
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.
--
I was suggesting
A B C
|D E F
G H |I
should instead be:
A B E
F G
C|D
H|I
where the columnized output is for simple keys and the one-per-line keys follow with all the logic, not matching the alphanumeric sort anyways because they are complex
...and if it is known at runtime to indicate which the likely result of the complex key will be:
or just hide the logic from the output but indicate when something is a complex result:
A B (D)
E F G
(H)
and maybe it is not anything important to show the user so both hide logic and don't trouble us with the details: