[pacman-dev] pacman --print bug

[Eli Schwartz]

On 8/12/19 10:15 AM, AstroSnail via pacman-dev wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I think I found a bug in pacman.
> 
> When a package remove operation can't be satisfied, pacman prints an
> error, describes what went wrong, and does nothing:
>     $ sudo pacman -R linux-api-headers
>     checking dependencies...
>     error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
>     :: glibc: removing linux-api-headers breaks dependency 'linux-api-headers>=4.10'
> This is obviously correct.
> 
> When I try to --print a package remove operation that can't be
> satisfied, pacman prints an error, describes it, and does
> nothing, without printing the targets:
>     $ pacman -Rp linux-api-headers
>     error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
>     :: glibc: removing linux-api-headers breaks dependency 'linux-api-headers>=4.10'
> I can understand if this is correct behaviour as well, but at a glance it looks strange.
> 
> When a package remove operation *can* be satisfied, but only with
> user confirmation (e.g. a HoldPkg was found in target list), pacman
> will print warnings and ask for user input before deciding whether
> or not to continue:
>     $ sudo pacman -Rc linux-api-headers
>     checking dependencies...
>     <snip>
>     warning: pacman is designated as a HoldPkg.
>     warning: glibc is designated as a HoldPkg.
>     :: HoldPkg was found in target list. Do you want to continue? [y/N]
> This is obviously correct.
> 
> When I try to --print a package remove operation that *can* be
> satisfied, but only with user input, pacman prints a prompt for
> input but doesn't wait, and exits immediately, without even printing
> the warnings:
>     $ pacman -Rcp linux-api-headers
>     :: HoldPkg was found in target list. Do you want to continue? [y/N]
> This does not sound like correct behaviour to me.

To add to the inconsistency, if you try to install two packages that
conflict with each other, pacman chooses one to prefer, then provides a:

warning: removing 'calibre' from target list because it conflicts with
'calibre-git'

And installs only the one package.

But with the --print option, it prints the filenames of both
transactions that it is apparently considering.

...

Personally I think there's just a lot of problems with pacman --print,
and I think pacutils' pacinstall --print-only does a lot better, as
would using expac directly.

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Bug Wrangler and Trusted User

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