[Aptitude-devel] Bug#821866: aptitude -t option does not work as documented; -t unstable download gets package from experimental

[Josh Triplett]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.7.8-1
Severity: normal

"man aptitude" says:

> -t <release>, --target-release <release>
>     Set the release from which packages should be installed. For
>     instance, “aptitude -t experimental ...”  will install packages
>     from the experimental distribution unless you specify otherwise.
>     For the command-line actions “changelog”, “download”, and “show”,
>     this is equivalent to appending /<release> to each package named on
>     the command-line;

However:

/tmp$ aptitude -t unstable download apt-listchanges
Get: 1 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian experimental/main amd64 apt-listchanges all 3.1 [101 kB]
Fetched 101 kB in 0s (301 kB/s)

/tmp$ aptitude download apt-listchanges/unstable
Get: 1 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 apt-listchanges all 2.89 [95.7 kB]
Fetched 95.7 kB in 0s (267 kB/s)

The same goes for "show" and "changelog".

-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: xterm-256color
$DISPLAY is set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.7.8
Compiler: g++ 5.3.1 20160224
Compiled against:
  apt version 5.0.0
  NCurses version 6.0
  libsigc++ version: 2.6.2
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 6.0.20160319
  cwidget version: 0.5.17
  Apt version: 5.0.0

aptitude linkage:
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffd9d5a9000)
	libapt-pkg.so.5.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.5.0 (0x00007f9406c8d000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007f9406a5d000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007f9406832000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007f940662b000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007f940632e000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007f9406033000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.58.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.58.0 (0x00007f9405e19000)
	libboost_filesystem.so.1.58.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.58.0 (0x00007f9405c00000)
	libboost_system.so.1.58.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.58.0 (0x00007f94059fb000)
	libxapian.so.22 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxapian.so.22 (0x00007f94055f7000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f94053da000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f940505e000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f9404d60000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f9404b4a000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f94047a5000)
	libutil.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libutil.so.1 (0x00007f94045a2000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f940439e000)
	libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007f9404186000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f9403f6b000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007f9403d5b000)
	liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007f9403b37000)
	liblz4.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblz4.so.1 (0x00007f9403925000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f940371c000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007f9403517000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x000055f3986e4000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.5.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common            0.7.8-1
ii  libapt-pkg5.0              1.2.10
ii  libboost-filesystem1.58.0  1.58.0+dfsg-5+b1
ii  libboost-iostreams1.58.0   1.58.0+dfsg-5+b1
ii  libboost-system1.58.0      1.58.0+dfsg-5+b1
ii  libc6                      2.22-6
ii  libcwidget3v5              0.5.17-4+b1
ii  libgcc1                    1:5.3.1-14
ii  libncursesw5               6.0+20160319-1
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0v5          2.8.0-1
ii  libsqlite3-0               3.12.1-1
ii  libstdc++6                 5.3.1-14
ii  libtinfo5                  6.0+20160319-1
ii  libxapian22v5              1.2.23-1

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
pn  aptitude-doc-en | aptitude-doc  <none>
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl   1.2.0-8
ii  sensible-utils                  0.0.9

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

-- no debconf information