[Aptitude-devel] Bug#562042: aptitude: should have a flag to upgrade all dependencies of a package

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Control: tags -1 + wontfix


Hi Török,

2009-12-22 08:03 Török Edwin:
>Package: aptitude
>Version: 0.6.1.3-3
>Severity: wishlist
>
>aptitude should have a flag to upgrade all the recommends/suggests of the
>package, when the package is upgraded.
>
>For example to upgrade texlive, I would like to just do this:
>$ aptitude install --update-all-deps texlive-full
>
>And it should update all the installed depends, recommended, and suggested
>dependencies of the package (if possible). Perhaps this should be the default for
>metapackages.
>
>Currently I have to open synaptic, search for texlive, select each package and
>click upgrade. Aptitude would only update texlive-full package, and not its
>dependencies. Yes, the dependencies are not strict, but I would still like to
>upgrade all packages when I upgrade a metapackage, upgrading only the
>metapackage doesn't make much sense.

This is already possible (and has been for more than a decade) by using
patterns (so marking the bug as +wontfix):

  http://aptitude.alioth.debian.org/doc/en/ch02s04.html
  http://aptitude.alioth.debian.org/doc/en/ch02s04s05.html


For example, to upgrade the suggested dependencies of "texlive-full"
which are already installed (try with additional '-s' if wary of
breaking something):

  $ aptitude upgrade ~i~RSuggests:texlive-full


I hope that it's obvious to see how to implement what you want from this
example.


>Also there should be a flag to install all recommends of an already installed
>package, similar to --with-recommends but for already installed packages.

  $ aptitude install '!~i~RRecommends:texlive-full'

(Install the packages recommended by texlive-full which are not already
installed -- harmless to omit the '!~i', but generates some errors)


Hope that helps.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>