[Aptitude-devel] Bug#631525: aptitude dependency display for PreDepends seems to disregard pin choice

[Daniel Hartwig]

Hello

Osamu Aoki <osamu at debian.org> wrote:
> In testing 500/ unstable 50 mix systm, I saw the following for recent
> libpam-modules:
> --------------
> i    --\ libpam-modules                          1.1.3-1         1.1.3-1
                                                   ^current     candidate^

The header line is misleading and shows the current (installed) and
candidate version numbers regardless of which version the other details
are for. There is no indication which version you are actually looking
at. [1]

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/593248

>   --\ PreDepends (6)

>     --- libpam-modules-bin (= 1.1.3-2) (UNSATISFIED)
>     --- libpam0g (>= 1.1.3-2) (UNSATISFIED)

This is the only hint that the details here are for 1.1.3-2.

> Since 1.1.3-1 is pin choice, I expected not to see PreDepends for
> libpam-modules-bin and libpam0g.  After seeing (UNSATISFIED), I thought
> system is broken.  But reality is not so bad.  It is just displaying
> bogus PreDepend.

Yes, this is normally what happens.  When you select to view the details
of a package in aptitude you get the first version which is either:
- the candidate;
- marked for install; or
- currently installed.

In this case it looks like you are being shown some other version.  Most
likely from pressing RET on a version item, such as one of:

>   --\ Versions of libpam-modules (2)
> i    1.1.3-1
> p    1.1.3-2

or in the main view, when the final grouping policy is “versions”:

> i     --\ libpam-modules                        1.1.3-7        1.1.3-7.1
> i       1.1.3-7                                                      100
> p       1.1.3-7.1                                                    500

So, when this happened, do you recall how this screen was opened?  Was
it by selecting a particular version?

If you select to view a similar package from the main screen (and not a
specific version of it) are you shown the details for the candidate
version?

> Until suggested version becomes 1.1.3-2 by manual intervention, these
> 1.1.3-2 dependency is best hidden.

I think the current behaviour I mention above is ok.  If a user asks to
view a specific version then they should be shown the details for that
version.

Regards