Re: Bug#1108505: apt outputs logical-or vertical bar in recommended packages section
E Shattow <lucent@gmail.com> writes:
> 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.
If i understand this bug report (and im not sure i do) then i think very
few end users are going to understand this new format
when i look at
apt install git devscripts
in a chroot, then under recommended packages i see, for example:
...
... licensecheck | curl ...
...
i think hardly anyone will guess this means anything other than
"licensecheck or curl", is this bug report saying it means something
else, and if so, what?
Reply to: