[Bug 1639815] Re: apt list output format

[Donjan Rodic]

Thanks for your clarification.
Not to draw this out, but to briefly address your points:

* can be field 2 without any drawback when passing it on
* 'apt list' produces search output preferable to 'apt search' (anecdotal and ymmv: both users I've discussed this with agree)
* could have been a chance to clean up a rarely used part of the interface

apt still lacks the convenience of other tools: apt-cache, aptitude and
yum all sport more comfortable search.

It seems the decision is made and this report has run its course...
could you please hint about the chance of the apt dev team accepting
design changing patches?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1639815

Title:
  apt list output format

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  I'm trying to get used to the new 'apt' utility and have three
  wishlist items (don't want to clutter the tracker with multiple
  feature requests) in descending priority:

  1. apt list firefox
  In the output, can we please have a space after the package name, before the slash?
  A very convenient feature of apt-cache/aptitude is to search for a package, then double click + middle click the name of a result to speedily select it and paste it into the current prompt (which is prepared with e.g. an install, show or depends command).
  'apt list' appends '/repo,XXX' (where XXX is most often garbage... ehm, I mean strings like 'now' or again 'other_repo,now') right after the package name, which makes the double click select more than just a package name.
  E.g. 'apt policy firefox/yakkety-updates' fails.
  This would also be more convenient for awk scripts (despite the stable interface warning).

  2. apt list fox
  Can we please have substring matching by default (or a storable user pref) for 'apt list'? 
  'apt search' is _way_ too noisy (the three line output per package instead of one line is just clutter).
  But 'apt list' doesn't match like 'apt-cache search' (or aptitude). The alternative is defaulting to 'apt l<tab> **' and then filling in between the asterisks, or resorting to 'apt l<tab>|grep' as standard 'apt-cache search' replacement.
  I don't see the justification for the current exact searching in only the package names. And there's still 'apt search' for searching the description.

  3. apt sh<tab>
  A minor complaint: all current apt commands complete once they are tabbed when their string becomes unique, and append a space. Only 'apt show' in 16.10 (as opposed to 16.04) does not due to the undocumented showsrc command. This often leads to 'apt showfirefox' after writing 'apt sh<tab>firefox', because it's inconsistent with the other commands.
  So, find another name for showsrc?

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