[Bug 1300991] [NEW] auto-apt update and updatedb commands fail on 0.3.23

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

You have been subscribed to a public bug by Bruno Nova (brunonova):

[Impact]
* auto-apt fails to update its local database of package information.
  - Due to this, auto-apt is unusable in Trusty (and Saucy).
* The new version 0.3.24 fixes this bug, LP: #1300987 and a dpkg warning about an
  obsolete argument.

[Test Case]
* Run the commands 'sudo auto-apt update' and 'sudo auto-apt updatedb'.
  - With version 0.3.23, the local database is not updated and the commands print
    'put: 0 files, 0 entries done (xx seconds)' or similar.
  - With the new version 0.3.24, the local database is successfully updated. The
    commands take a lot more time to complete and display more output.

[Regression Potential]
* auto-apt is already non-functional in Trusty (and Saucy), therefore there is no
  regression potential.

[Other Info]
* The original bug report for Saucy follows:

1)Description: Ubuntu 13.10
Release: 13.10

Note: Actually Kubuntu 13.10

2)auto-apt:
  Installed: 0.3.23
  Candidate: 0.3.23
  Version table:
 *** 0.3.23 0
        500 http://md.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

3) $ sudo auto-apt update
     $ sudo auto-apt updatedb
Both commands should update the databases

4) $ sudo auto-apt update
     $ sudo auto-apt updatedb
Both commands  output:
put: 0 files, 0 entries done (xx seconds)
where xx is about 10 seconds.
And, no update is performed.

5) The bug is caused by line 145 in /usr/bin/auto-apt
 sed -ne 's=^[[:space:]][[:space:]]*deb[[:space:]][[:space:]]*\([^:[:space:]]*\):\([^[:space:]]*\)[[:space:]][[:space:]]*\([^[:space:]]*\)[[:space:]][[:space:]]*.*=\1 \2/dists/\3=p' |

i.e. by the one trailing space in the beginning ^[[:space:]][[:space:]]*deb
At least my /etc/apt/sources.list doesn't contain any trailing spaces, which causes the sed to return 0 sources and no update is performed by auto-apt.

6) A workaround (or maybe a fix) is to delete the first trailing space [[:space:]] so the line should look like
sed -ne 's=^[[:space:]]*deb[[:space:]][[:space:]]*\([^:[:space:]]*\):\([^[:space:]]*\)[[:space:]][[:space:]]*\([^[:space:]]*\)[[:space:]][[:space:]]*.*=\1 \2/dists/\3=p' |

** Affects: auto-apt (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Fix Released


** Tags: saucy trusty
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auto-apt update and updatedb commands fail on 0.3.23
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1300991
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