On 2015-12-06 at 15:30, Russ Allbery wrote: > The Wanderer <wande...@fastmail.fm> writes: > >> $ apt-cache policy apt-file >> apt-file: >> Installed: 2.5.4 >> Candidate: 2.5.4 >> Version table: >> *** 2.5.4 0 >> 500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable/main amd64 Packages >> 500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing/main amd64 Packages >> 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status > >> So my inference at this point is that in testing and stable, 'apt-get >> update' (and presumably 'apt update') does not update the apt-file >> index, but in experimental and possibly sid it does. > >> IOW, this is not only new since I noticed the above, but new since >> _now_. > > Yes... that's what the words in the subject header of this thread mean? > The word "upcoming" was important. :)
Yes, I know. I think the confusion here arose from the simple facts that A: it would not have occurred to me to consider that a change in the apt-file package could introduce a change in the behavior of a binary (apt) shipped in a separate package, and B: no mention of an upcoming change to that separate package had been made. Based on that, I assumed that in order for 'apt-file update' to become a wrapper around 'apt update', the "update both indices" behavior would need to already exist in apt - and therefore that that behavior exists in _current_ apt. Since I had not seen it in apt-get, this supported my existing impression that apt and apt-get are meaningfully different. Starting from that point, Niels' response to my initial comment seemed contradictory vs. my own observations; if apt does this, and apt uses the same code as apt-get, but apt-get does not do this, then there's a mismatch somewhere. Jakub pointed out (implicitly in passing) that this change is apparently in fact being made purely by way of a config file in the apt-file package, which presumably apt and apt-get already know how to read and handle. I missed the implications on the way by (in fact, it took me three drafts of this reply to fully work them out), and responded to the question which he actually asked. I'm not sure I'm happy about such an important change in the behavior of the core binary of one package being (able to be) made by an update to a completely different package, and I certainly wouldn't have been happy to discover it after the fact by seeing 'apt-get update' do something unexpected - but there's not much I can do about it... -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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