[Bug 919216] Re: aptitude returns 0 exit status code even if the requested action is not successful

[Daniel Hartwig]

> Well, in the case of failing dependencies, it seems like any choice at
> the prompt gives a 0 return value. Is the rationale that 'aptitude
> managed to abort successfully' equals success? If that is the intended
> functionality, then I cannot trust aptitude to give any meaningful
> return value.

In choosing to abort at the prompt the return value of 0 should be
considered a bug.  Other choices made at the prompt have the effect of
changing your instructions, and thus, if the new request succeeds, the
return value should indicate that.

> And as far as I can see, the bug you refer to only concerns failing to
> install a specified version. At least that's what it patches.

Both case 2 in the OP and the case in the mentioned Debian bug report
are symptoms of the same underlying problem: failure to find the
specified installation candidate.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/919216

Title:
  aptitude returns 0 exit status code even if the requested action is
  not successful

Status in aptitude:
  New
Status in “aptitude” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I have experienced two cases where aptitude returns a 0 exit status
  code, even if it prints error messages to the terminal.

  
  Case 1: A package cannot be installed due to unmet dependencies.
  Example: (installing something that depends on sun-java on a host with the "partner" repository disabled)

      > sudo /usr/bin/aptitude -y install hadoop-0.20
      Reading package lists... Done
      Building dependency tree
      Reading state information... Done
      Reading extended state information
      Initializing package states... Done
      The following packages are BROKEN:
        hadoop-0.20
      The following NEW packages will be installed:
        hadoop-0.20-native{a} liblzo2-2{a}
      0 packages upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
      Need to get 41.2MB of archives. After unpacking 92.3MB will be used.
      The following packages have unmet dependencies:
        hadoop-0.20: Depends: sun-java6-jre which is a virtual package.
                     Depends: sun-java6-bin which is a virtual package.
      The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
     
      Keep the following packages at their current version:
      hadoop-0.20 [Not Installed]
      hadoop-0.20-native [Not Installed]
     
      Score is -9868
     
      Writing extended state information... Done
      Reading package lists... Done
      Building dependency tree
      Reading state information... Done
      Reading extended state information
      Initializing package states... Done

      > echo $?
      0

  Expected result: Non-zero exit status code

  
  Case 2: The package name does not exist
  Example:
     > sudo aptitude install bogus-package
     Reading package lists... Done
     Building dependency tree
     Reading state information... Done
     Reading extended state information
     Initializing package states... Done
     Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "bogus-package"
     Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "bogus-package"
     No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
     0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
     Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
     Reading package lists... Done
     Building dependency tree
     Reading state information... Done
     Reading extended state information
     Initializing package states... Done

     > echo $?
     0

  Expected result: Non-zero exit status code

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