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

E Shattow <[email protected]> writes:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 03:49 Julian Andres Klode <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> 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.

If i understand this bug report (and im not sure i do) then i think very
few end users are going to understand this new format

when i look at

apt install git devscripts

in a chroot, then under recommended packages i see, for example:

...
... licensecheck               | curl ...
...

i think hardly anyone will guess this means anything other than
"licensecheck or curl", is this bug report saying it means something
else, and if so, what?