[Aptitude-devel] why does not aptitude purge rather than just remove packages.

[shirish शिरीष]

Hi all,
Sorry for touching an oldish thread (couple of weeks old). Today I had
time and tried few things :-

$ aptitude search ?config-files

c   libmarblewidget11                                   - Marble globe
widget library
 $ dpkg-query --showformat='${Conffiles}\n' --show libmarblewidget11


$
As can be seen it show me nothing

Then went to /var/lib/dpkg/info to see if this library
libmarblewidget11 has some info. tucked in there.

$ ls libmarblewidget1
libmarblewidget11.list      libmarblewidget12.list
libmarblewidget12.postinst  libmarblewidget12.shlibs
libmarblewidget11.postrm    libmarblewidget12.md5sums
libmarblewidget12.postrm    libmarblewidget12.symbols

as can be seen only 2 files for libmarblewidget11, one is called
libmarblewidget11.list and the other one libmarkblewidget.11.postrm .
I looked at both the files, maybe there is some clue in there.

 /var/lib/dpkg/info$ cat libmarblewidget11.list
$

As can be seen it is empty/contains nothing.

$ cat libmarblewidget11.postrm
#!/bin/sh
set -e
# Automatically added by dh_makeshlibs
if [ "$1" = "remove" ]; then
	ldconfig
fi
# End automatically added section

just says something about ldconfig (which if I understand correctly is
used to link shared libraries) so basically nothing's there.

One of the interesting things to note was that libmarblewidget12 had 5
files while these had two. I also saw that libmarblewidget12.postrm
has similar/same words. Of course .list file is populated and seems it
has the same info. that dpkg -L libmarblewidget12 has/had.

Another point to note. It seems that neither '$ aptitude search
?config-files' nor $ aptitude search ~c is documented anywhere either
in the man-page or in the help

$ aptitude --help
aptitude 0.6.5
Usage: aptitude [-S fname] [-u|-i]
       aptitude [options] <action> ...
  Actions (if none is specified, aptitude will enter interactive mode):

 install      - Install/upgrade packages.
 remove       - Remove packages.
 purge        - Remove packages and their configuration files.
 hold         - Place packages on hold.
 unhold       - Cancel a hold command for a package.
 markauto     - Mark packages as having been automatically installed.
 unmarkauto   - Mark packages as having been manually installed.
 forbid-version - Forbid aptitude from upgrading to a specific package version.
 update       - Download lists of new/upgradable packages.
 safe-upgrade - Perform a safe upgrade.
 full-upgrade - Perform an upgrade, possibly installing and removing packages.
 build-dep    - Install the build-dependencies of packages.
 forget-new   - Forget what packages are "new".
 search       - Search for a package by name and/or expression.
 show         - Display detailed information about a package.
 versions     - Displays the versions of specified packages.
 clean        - Erase downloaded package files.
 autoclean    - Erase old downloaded package files.
 changelog    - View a package's changelog.
 download     - Download the .deb file for a package.
 reinstall    - Download and (possibly) reinstall a currently installed package.
 why          - Show the manually installed packages that require a package, or
                why one or more packages would require the given package.
 why-not      - Show the manually installed packages that lead to a conflict
                with the given package, or why one or more packages would
                lead to a conflict with the given package if installed.

  Options:
 -h             This help text.
 --no-gui       Do not use the GTK GUI even if available.
 -s             Simulate actions, but do not actually perform them.
 -d             Only download packages, do not install or remove anything.
 -P             Always prompt for confirmation of actions.
 -y             Assume that the answer to simple yes/no questions is 'yes'.
 -F format      Specify a format for displaying search results; see the manual.
 -O order       Specify how search results should be sorted; see the manual.
 -w width       Specify the display width for formatting search results.
 -f             Aggressively try to fix broken packages.
 -V             Show which versions of packages are to be installed.
 -D             Show the dependencies of automatically changed packages.
 -Z             Show the change in installed size of each package.
 -v             Display extra information. (may be supplied multiple times).
 -t [release]   Set the release from which packages should be installed.
 -q             In command-line mode, suppress the incremental progress
                indicators.
 -o key=val     Directly set the configuration option named 'key'.
 --with(out)-recommends	Specify whether or not to treat recommends as
                strong dependencies.
 -S fname       Read the aptitude extended status info from fname.
 -u             Download new package lists on startup.
                  (terminal interface only)
 -i             Perform an install run on startup.
                  (terminal interface only)

                  This aptitude does not have Super Cow Powers.

Maybe I should file a bug, anybody ?

-- 
          Regards,
          Shirish Agarwal  शिरीष अग्रवाल
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