Bug#1108505: apt outputs logical-or vertical bar in recommended packages section

On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 03:02:44PM -0700, E Shattow wrote:
> Package: apt
> Version: 3.0.2
> Severity: normal
> X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected]
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> `apt install git devscripts` in a clean trixie dist pbuilder environment and
> see this:
> 
> ...
> Recommended packages:
>   dctrl-tools                lintian          unzip
> pristine-tar                libxstring-perl
>   dput                       lzip             wget                       less
> libdata-dump-perl
>   | dupload                  python3-apt      | curl                     ssh-
> client                  libhtml-form-perl
>   libdistro-info-perl        python3-debian   debian-keyring             gnupg
> libhttp-daemon-perl
>   libgit-wrapper-perl        python3-magic    debian-tag2upload-keyring
> libgpg-error-l10n           libmailtools-perl
>   liblist-compare-perl       python3-unidiff  equivs
> libhtml-format-perl         python3-argcomplete
>   libstring-shellquote-perl  python3-xdg      libgitlab-api-v4-perl      libio-
> compress-brotli-perl  sopv-doc
>   licensecheck               strace           libsoap-lite-perl
> libnamespace-clean-perl
> ...
> 
> Are those logical-or vertical bar in output intentional? Looks like a parsing
> bug to me, because of the column display the logical condition has lost context
> and does not make sense to show the user. If you want to show these in a
> meaningful way then after all the n-columns output of the simple non-logic-
> encumbered keys, have a single-column listing one-per-line of the more
> complicated keys.

I can understand how say

    A1 | A2 B C
    D E F

reads easier, but if you look at

    A B C1
    | C2 D

vs.

    A C1    D
    B |C2
    
or 

    A   |C2
    B   D
    C1


It's not immediately clear one is better just because it wraps on
lines instead of columns; the alternatives were never attached
and always broken.

In fact, I believe the columnar format here is actually more
readable.
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