[Aptitude-devel] Bug#819943: really should add an unforbid-version command

[積丹尼 Dan Jacobson]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.7.8-1

Today I will inspect the how hard it is to just simple reverse the action of
# aptitude forbid-version somepackage
so we are back to the state before we did it.

The man page says

           To revert the action, "aptitude install <package>" will remove the
           ban. To remove the forbidden version without installing the
           candidate version, the current version should be appended: "install
           <package>=<version>".

Well I think you really should an unforbid-version command.

With no = then it should clear the forbidden version of that package(s).

Also the man page should say if only one version can be forbidden or
more.

Also one thinks I could just use forbid-version=0 to clear it, but that
is not a current version of that package.

And
# aptitude forbid-version package1 package2 package3 ... package20
will require an enormous amount of work to reverse, digging up each
version number...

OK, let's try
# aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-cirrus=1:1.5.3-1+b1

We will very likely encounter some
"The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

      Remove the following packages:"
questions which we will very probably answer "n", never reaching the
point where supposedly the forbid-version will be erased without
installing the package before quitting!

And, when you think about it
# aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-cirrus=<current-version>
means the same as
# aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
so if one didn't want to install the package one would answer "n" when
asked so never reaching the step where ... anyway one big no-op and the
forbid-version stays.