[Bug 1598810] Re: `apt-get install python3.4` on xenial exits 0 despite python3.4 not being available

[Julian Andres Klode]

I think we might want to have some strict mode at some point which does
no automatic fallback search. Patterns also have regular expressions
according to the aptitude manual, but that does not quite match the
reality (aptitude install foo always installs exactly foo).

I can image we add a --exact-name option to install that only allows
exact matches and does not search for similar names. That's like
aptitude's ?exact-name pattern. Or we could do it the other way around
and disable it by default for non-interactive use, and introduce a
--force-no-exact-match-search-for-it option (and a prompt, well, just
combine it into the existing prompt).

** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => Medium

** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Triaged

** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
     Assignee: (unassigned) => Julian Andres Klode (juliank)

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Title:
  `apt-get install python3.4` on xenial exits 0 despite python3.4 not
  being available

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  As per [0], `apt-get install python3.4` won't raise an error (despite
  the package not existing in xenial, and no installation happening),
  but `apt-get install not-a-real-package` will.  I would expect the
  behaviour to be the same in both cases.

  This may cause issues for users upgrading from trusty to xenial.  If
  someone is running a Python application that relies on Python 3.4,
  their automation may run "apt-get install python3.4" to ensure that
  Python 3.4 is available, expecting it to raise an error if python3.4
  does not end up installed.  It won't, and they will then unexpectedly
  be running 3.5.

  [0] http://paste.ubuntu.com/18443198/

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