[Aptitude-devel] Bug#698768: aptitude: "versions" incorrectly reports status of package as "purged" when it is "config-files"

[Stuart Prescott]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.6.8.2-1
Severity: normal

Hi!

in #debian, we were looking at the output from "aptitude versions ~ndovecot"
to check that the right packages were installed. The output included:

Package dovecot-common:
p   1:2.0.15-1                                                              100 
p   1:2.1.7-6                                     testing                   500 

And the obvious question was "why is dovecot-common being shown twice here.
There's no archive shown, so it's not that it is also available from stable (or
backports) and it's shown in a "p" state so it's not just because apt still
knows about the package because config files are around... or is it?

On my own system, I was able to replicate and investigate this with the package
"global" that I had recently installed and removed (some build-dep or other, I
guess). I see the following output from aptitude and dpkg which shows that
"aptitude versions" is incorrectly reporting the state of removed-but-not-purged
packages:

$ aptitude search ~c
c   global                                   - Source code search and browse tools               

$ dpkg-query -f'${Status}' --show global
deinstall ok config-files

$ aptitude versions ~n^global$
Package global:                          
p   5.7.1-2                                               testing,unstable                   550 
$ aptitude versions ~n^global$ -F"state=%C action=%A  %p %t %i"
Package global:                          
state=purged      action=none        5.7.1-2                               testing,unstable  550 

$ aptitude show global | grep State
State: not installed


It would be much more useful if "aptitude versions" were to get the state of
the package right for exactly this sort of situation.

cheers
Stuart

-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: xterm
$DISPLAY is set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.6.8.2 compiled at Nov  5 2012 06:20:41
Compiler: g++ 4.7.2
Compiled against:
  apt version 4.12.0
  NCurses version 5.9
  libsigc++ version: 2.2.10
  Ept support enabled.
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 5.9.20110404
  cwidget version: 0.5.16
  Apt version: 4.12.0

aptitude linkage:
	linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xb77ae000)
	libapt-pkg.so.4.12 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.4.12 (0xb722a000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0xb71f7000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0xb71d6000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0xb71d1000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/libcwidget.so.3 (0xb70d1000)
	libept.so.1.aptpkg4.12 => /usr/lib/libept.so.1.aptpkg4.12 (0xb703e000)
	libxapian.so.22 => /usr/lib/sse2/libxapian.so.22 (0xb6e55000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0xb6e3b000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0xb6d8a000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.49.0 => /usr/lib/libboost_iostreams.so.1.49.0 (0xb6d72000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0xb6d59000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0xb6c6d000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0xb6c46000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xb6c29000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xb6ac6000)
	libutil.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libutil.so.1 (0xb6ac2000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0xb6abe000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0xb6aac000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0xb6aa6000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/librt.so.1 (0xb6a9d000)
	/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb77af000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.0
  APT prefers testing-updates
  APT policy: (550, 'testing-updates'), (550, 'testing-proposed-updates'), (550, 'testing'), (60, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common           0.6.8.2-1
ii  libapt-pkg4.12            0.9.7.7
ii  libboost-iostreams1.49.0  1.49.0-3.1
ii  libc6                     2.13-37
ii  libcwidget3               0.5.16-3.4
ii  libept1.4.12              1.0.9
ii  libgcc1                   1:4.7.2-5
ii  libncursesw5              5.9-10
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0c2a        2.2.10-0.2
ii  libsqlite3-0              3.7.13-1
ii  libstdc++6                4.7.2-5
ii  libtinfo5                 5.9-10
ii  libxapian22               1.2.12-2
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.7.dfsg-13

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
ii  apt-xapian-index                0.45
ii  aptitude-doc-en [aptitude-doc]  0.6.8.2-1
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl   1.2.0-1
ii  sensible-utils                  0.0.7

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
ii  debtags  1.10.1
ii  tasksel  3.14

-- no debconf information