[Aptitude-devel] Bug#159584: reverse dependency list should show actual dependency

[Andreas Bombe]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 08:07:50PM +0000, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo wrote:
> Control: tags -1 + pending
> 
> 
> Hi Andreas,
> 
> 2002-09-04 13:23 Andreas Bombe:
> >Package: aptitude
> >Version: 0.2.11.1-3
> >Severity: wishlist
> >
> >When showing the reverse dependencies aptitude only shows the package
> >names and versions.  This makes it difficult to see whether the reverse
> >depends really requires that exact package or if it's just one
> >alternative.  You have to enter every package description to find out.
> >
> >It would be immediately visible if there was a way to display the
> >dependency leading to the reverse depends in the list.
> 
> I changed this to show it in this way:
> 
>  --\ Packages which depend on iceweasel (480)
>  --- Depends (348)
>  --\ Depends on provided gnome-www-browser (1)
>  p     cinnamon-desktop-environment 2.8.0
>  --\ Depends on provided www-browser (69)
>  p     bibus-doc-en 1.5.2-4
>  p     browser-plugin-packagekit 1.0.11-1
>  p     c-cpp-reference 2.0.2-8
>  p     cppreference-doc-en-html 20151129+dfsg0-1
>  p     drgeo-doc 1.5-7
>  p     fish 2.2.0-3
>  p     fsl-5.0-core 5.0.8-5
>  p     gimp-help-ca 2.8.2-0.1
>  p     gimp-help-de 2.8.2-0.1
>  p     gimp-help-el 2.8.2-0.1
>  p     gimp-help-en 2.8.2-0.1
>  p     gimp-help-es 2.8.2-0.1
>  p     gimp-help-fr 2.8.2-0.1
>  p     gimp-help-it 2.8.2-0.1
>  p     gimp-help-ja 2.8.2-0.1
>  p     gimp-help-ko 2.8.2-0.1
>  [...]
>  --- Recommends (30)
>  --- Recommends on provided www-browser (67)
>  --- Suggests (34)
>  --- Suggests on provided www-browser (125)
>  --- Enhances (66)
>  --- Conflicts (2)
> 				
> 
> It doesn't help for all cases with alternatives, but at least if one
> sees that the dependency is on a provided package, one can easily find
> if there are other alternatives that might fit the bill.
> 
> For example, if there is any package installed which "Depends" on
> iceweasel (like "iceweasel-l10-ms" or "xul-ext-blah"), probably cannot
> be uninstalled, but if the only ones installed are those depending on
> "www-browser" provided by iceweasel, one can substitute iceweasel for
> another browser.
> 
> Showing the OR dependencies and alternatives is quite difficult to
> implement in the way that things work, that's probably why the bug has
> been unfixed for 13+ years, and quite might be quite computationally
> intensive for packages with hundreds of rev-deps, so I think that this
> is an acceptable fix.

As you say, it's not quite the complete solution I wished for, but if
the complete solution is impractical then that will have to do. In any
case, I haven't tried to figure out how a proper solution would even
look like, I just wrote a generic wishlist bug there.

Also, thank you for working on a 13 year old wishlist bug! I didn't
expect for anything to come out of it after all this time and just left
it open because there was no real reason to close it, so this is pretty
awesome.