[Aptitude-devel] Bug#760610: aptitude: duplicate entries in (reverse) dependencies list

[Rogier]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.6.11-1
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,

For some packages, aptitude may list a (reverse) dependency multiple times
in the dependency list. This happens when two or more dependencies directly
or indirectly resolve to the same package.

Example:
About 700-800 (estimated) packages depend on debconf. Currently, the majority
use the following dependency declaration:
	Depends: [...] debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0 [...]
As the package 'debconf' actually provides 'debconf-2.0' as well, aptitude ends
up including debconf twice in the list of dependencies.

For the reverse dependencies, the same holds: For instance, the reverse dependency
list of debconf includes almost all packages twice, and some three times because of
this. This results in a list of about 1600 reverse dependencies for debconf.

Packages that end up being listed three times in debconf's reverse dependency list,
seem to have the following dependency declaration:
	Depends: [...] debconf, [...] debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0 [...]
(based on a sample of a few packages that I checked)

It would be nice if, where possible, identical packages were not listed multiple
times in (reverse) dependency lists.

Kind regards,

Rogier.

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

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.6.11 compiled at Jun  9 2014 21:54:38
Compiler: g++ 4.8.3
Compiled against:
  apt version 4.12.0
  NCurses version 5.9
  libsigc++ version: 2.2.11
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 5.9.20140712
  cwidget version: 0.5.17
  Apt version: 4.12.0

aptitude linkage:
	linux-gate.so.1 (0xf76f7000)
	libapt-pkg.so.4.12 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.4.12 (0xf7167000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0xf712c000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0xf7108000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0xf7102000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0xf6ffe000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0xf6f28000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.55.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.55.0 (0xf6f11000)
	libxapian.so.22 => /usr/lib/sse2/libxapian.so.22 (0xf6d11000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0xf6cf5000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0xf6c03000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0xf6bbd000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xf6ba0000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xf69f4000)
	libutil.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libutil.so.1 (0xf69f0000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0xf69eb000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0xf69d2000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0xf69c0000)
	liblzma.so.5 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0xf6998000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/librt.so.1 (0xf698f000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0xf6989000)
	/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xf76f8000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.14-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common           0.6.11-1
ii  libapt-pkg4.12            1.0.7
ii  libboost-iostreams1.55.0  1.55.0+dfsg-2
ii  libc6                     2.19-10
ii  libcwidget3               0.5.17-1
ii  libgcc1                   1:4.9.1-4
ii  libncursesw5              5.9+20140712-2
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0c2a        2.2.11-4
ii  libsqlite3-0              3.8.6-1
ii  libstdc++6                4.9.1-4
ii  libtinfo5                 5.9+20140712-2
ii  libxapian22               1.2.18-1

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
ii  aptitude-doc-en [aptitude-doc]  0.6.11-1
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl   1.2.0-1
ii  sensible-utils                  0.0.9

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
ii  apt-xapian-index  0.46
ii  debtags           1.12.1
pn  tasksel           <none>

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/logrotate.d/aptitude changed [not included]

-- no debconf information

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