[Aptitude-devel] Bug#665824: Bug#665824: possibility for the user to mark installed packages with some kind of text

[Daniel Hartwig]

On 27 March 2012 06:25, William <r.3 at libertysurf.fr> wrote:
>
> Hello,
> and many thanks for this very interesting comment.
>

Hi

My answers will be to-the-point so as to be clear.  There a couple of
interesting suggestions here but others which can not be used.

> Clearly, that would be
> interesting to put it in the --help page or in the internet wiki debian page
> (I can help if you tell me how!).

The primary source for information about using aptitude is the user's
manual (French version available in aptitude-doc-fr).  Also the man
page contains the full details of the command-line, but does not
contain details of search terms, etc.

--help is meant to be brief.  In the future you can expect even less
content thereto keep the focus on what is frequently used.

You can edit the wiki by signing up I guess.  Feel free to add
anything you think will be useful there.  Keep in mind that as the
program changes anything you put on a wiki will become more and more
out-of-date.

>
> Note :
> I tried :
> $ aptitude add-user-tag foo wine
> It said nothing, but could not find the tag after, using the command :
> $ aptitude search '?user-tag(foo)'
>

Is that on a multi-arch system?

> May I suggest new syntax and new commands ? I know this may not be accepted,
> but anyway I would like to share my thoughts. The purpose of the 'new'
> commands  is to make it simplier for the user, yet powerful :
>

Please excuse my blunt replies :-)

>
> # aptitude install --user-tag william-debian-packaging-tutorial
> build-essential devscripts debhelper
> [ 1 : simplified name here, to be used in many different commands. 2 : No
> "add". If tag does not exists, then it is created. ]
>

No.  "user-tag" does not indicate an action, "add-user-tag" does and
makes it clear what is happening.

Further, it is possible to mix many aptitude actions in the same
command, for example:

# aptitude install foo bar- other_

which will install foo, remove bar, and purge other.  In this way it
becomes very difficult to decide what action "--user-tag" should imply
(add or remove? Both?)  It is impossible to decide in a way that is
predictable for the user, so we require "--add-user-tag" or
"--remove-user-tag".

Also, with your syntax, how can someone say "install packages with the
tag jason"?

# aptitude install --user-tag jason otherpkg1 otherpkg2

Can't be done.  the user tag will be added to otherpkg1 and otherpkg2,
rather than installing all packages tagged jason and those other two.

> # aptitude show --user-tag
> [ 3 : or something to be able to list available tags ! Not available right
> now ? ]
>

An interesting idea.

>
> # aptitude search --user-tag william
> # aptitude search --user-tag william '!~M'
> [ 4 : different syntax, that uses '--user-tag' much like other commands ]
>

No.  User tags already have a well established search term which is
used exactly the same as all other search terms.  You are now also
suggesting to overload "--user-tag" here to mean "search for this user
tag" where previously you suggest "--user-tag" to mean "maybe add or
remove this user tag".  This is dangerous territory.

> # aptitude user-tag william-debian-packaging-tutorial devscripts
> [ 5 : action to add the tag to the package, which does not work right now ?
> ]
>

There is already add-user-tag, which is more meaningful and does work.
 Note that the lack of output only indicates that there has not been
any errors.

# aptitude add-user-tag temp emacs23 emacs23-nox
# aptitude search -F%p '?user-tag(temp)'
emacs23
emacs23-nox

> # aptitude purge --user-tag william-debian-packaging-tutorial
> [ 6 : removes the tag and the packages at the same time ]
>

No.  The user may still be interested in having the packages tagged
(perhaps they want to remember what they tried later? etc.)


Regards