[Aptitude-devel] Bug#1143964: The message “Package … is not installed, so it will not be removed” appears twice. Punctuation. Superfluous messages.

[Peter Müller]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.8.13-8+b1


Consider a not-installed package that aptitude is aware of. In my test below, it's an old, already removed kernel. Try to remove it again:

# LANG=en_US.utf8 aptitude remove linux-image-6.12.96+deb13-amd64
Package linux-image-6.12.96+deb13-amd64 is not installed, so it will not be removed
Package linux-image-6.12.96+deb13-amd64 is not installed, so it will not be removed
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.

Does the user really need to be told twice that the package is not installed? Or isn't the duplication simply pointless clutter? If you truly insist on reinforcing the message so that the absent-minded user finally gets it, replace the second line with something else, e.g., “The package is really gone, so there is no point in asking to remove it. Please refrain from it; you'd otherwise be simply wasting your time and computer resources.” So please fix this.

Please also terminate the full English sentences with a period: “Package […] is not installed, so it will not be removed.”

Furthermore, the utility of the trivial statistics in such a simple case is questionable. If one package was asked to be removed, and if nothing else was asked for, and if no actions are pending, and if the user has already been told that the package is gone, does the user really need to know

“No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.”

?

If you think so, please append an arbitrary amount of equally, erm, so useful information, saying, e.g.,

“0 resolver actions accepted.
Exactly 0 B freed or allocated.
0 threads created. 0 processes killed.
0 B transferred from remote mirrors.
In short, I achieved absolute spiritual enlightenment through supreme laziness and did precisely a whole lot of nothing.”

Or maybe, in cases where aptitude is asked to remove a not-installed package and really does nothing, a better approach could be printing only the line “Package […] is not installed, so it will not be removed.” and nothing else.

Gratefully,
Peter