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Diffstat (limited to 'NEWS')
| -rw-r--r-- | NEWS | 103 |
1 files changed, 103 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -1,6 +1,87 @@ [6/8/2012] Version 0.6.9 "All in a days work" +Error conditions are much stricter, detecting errors is more +reliable, and the exit status of all command-line actions is +well-defined. + +All commands will return one of these values as their exit +status: + + 0 – success + 1 – user aborted (install, remove, …); or + no matches (search, why, why-not); + 100 – failure + +For commands whose arguments are lists of packages or search +patterns the following general conditions hold: + + It is a failure if any package argument does not exactly + name a package. + + It is a failure if any versioned argument requests a + version which is not available for every package + identified by that argument. Versioned arguments are + those which end with a version or archive (release) + specifier, respectively “=<version>” and “/<archive>”. + + If a command includes a request to install, remove, or + purge any package that command will not proceed if any + of the above failures occur. Other commands may still + proceed in case of such failures but will exit with + non-zero status to indicate they were not completely + effective. + +Some commands have exceptions and/or extensions to the +general conditions: + + install, upgrade, remove, …: + + Where a request specifies a virtual package it is a + failure if it has either no provider or multiple + providers. If there is only one provider that package + will be selected instead of the virtual package. + + search: + + All arguments are considered patterns. Arguments + without an explicit search term will be wrapped in an + implicit ‘?name’ term. + +This is a major change from previous versions where the +program would have proceeded and possibly exited with a +status indicating success (0) despite some requested actions +being either invalid or ineffective. The new, stricter +behaviour is desirable for two reasons: + +- to prevent the situation where a request to replace one + set of packages with another set proceeds when (some of) + the replacements are not found or unavailable could cause + the undesired removal of arbitrary other packages; + +- to make the program more atomic and reliable when used for + automated tasks – by considering the entire request as + being essential to success another program can rely on an + exit status of 0 to mean that the request was completely + carried out. + +- Crashes and serious errors: + + * [cmdline]: install and similar actions have much + stronger error checking and will exit more + reliably with non-zero status on failures + + Failures which result in no action and a + non-zero exit status (100): + - a package argument does not exactly name + an available package; + - a versioned argument requests a version + which is not available for every package + it applies to (Closes: #590686); + + * [cmdline]: changelog exits with non-zero status on any + error (Closes: #675833) + - New features: * [cmdline]: Regular expressions are now supported to match names @@ -29,6 +110,16 @@ Version 0.6.9 "All in a days work" no bug reports suggests that noone has noticed they were broken, but they work now anyway + * [cmdline]: Virtual packages which have an already + installed provider are only skipped when the + requested action is to install them. + + * [cmdline]: search exit with status 1 if it found no + matches (Closes: #497299) + + * [cmdline]: why exits with status 1 if it found no + reasons given the particular arguments + - Internal changes: * Unified the way packages are selected from command line @@ -42,11 +133,23 @@ Version 0.6.9 "All in a days work" subtle quirks with our parser (such as "-qq" not being valid when it is fine for other apt programs). + * download_install_manager.cc: + - repeat if package manager result is DoAgain; + - report all download errors not just the first; + - Cosmetic and UI bugs: * [cmdline]: Use arch-qualified names for virtual packages in more places as this is what apt-utils do. + * [cmdline]: Most errors are now displayed at the end of a command's + output which makes them easier to spot when there is + lots of output. (Closes: #430392) + +- Documentation: + + * [doc]: add section on exit status to the man page + [5/11/2012] Version 0.6.8 "Never need a reason, never need a rhyme" |