[Aptitude-devel] Bug#497727: many commands append trailing blanks

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Control: tags -1 + wontfix


Hi,

2008-09-02 21:57 jidanni at jidanni.org:
>Package: aptitude
>Version: 0.4.11.9-1
>Severity: wishlist
>
>Many commands append trailing blanks.
># aptitude search bash|grep -c ' $'
>2

This is because of virtual packages with empty descriptions, but it
doesn't always happen.

  $ aptitude search base-files |grep -c ' $'
  0

># aptitude why desktop-file-utils|grep -c ' $'
>3

This one produces zero now.


>No big deal to some, but for full bladder control do fix one day.
>$ dpkg -l bash\*|grep -c ' $'
>0
>$ apt-cache search apt|grep -c ' $'
>0

I don't understand what's the harm in having some extra blanks, why it
would be of any benefit to remove them, or why we should spend time
tracking those cases that produce extra blanks.

Part of the reason why aptitude works in this way it's because it uses
common code with the curses interface and e.g. tries to make columns
even in command-line mode (although if piped/redirected since recently,
does --disable-columns).  In some cases if the columns are blank or
there are similar conditions, these effects of having extra blanks are
produced.

Sharing code is a bigger benefit than trying to not have some extra
blanks, even if that was a worthwhile goal to pursue.

So +wontfix.


Cheers.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>