[Bug 1309658] Re: Invalid comments in debian/apt.conf.autoremove

[David Kalnischkies]

As I implemented this years ago I am obviously biased, but I think not supporting "#" as a comment is a mistake as sources.list and preferences support it and most other config files you come across do comments with '#'. The autokernelremove code was an "external" contribution and it just shows that the default assumption is in fact '#'.
(all apt config files I have on my systems include #-comments btw, and I doubt I am the only one)
We should just document this fact properly instead of reverting support for it…


I wonder more why augeas is parsing our config file (but then again, I have no idea what augeas is). We have the apt-config tool to extract settings as well as python-apt, libapt-perl and libapt proper. Doing it on your own leads to a disaster sooner or later…
(just compare it with sources.list parsers… a simple codesearch reveals that most of them are fundamentally broken even in perfectly documented cases; but in most cases I have no idea why they they try to parse it in the first place…)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1309658

Title:
  Invalid comments in debian/apt.conf.autoremove

Status in “apt” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  According to apt.conf(5) man page, the only valid comments in apt
  config files are:

  "Lines starting with // are treated as comments (ignored), as well as
  all text between /* and */, just like C/C++ comments."

  There are comments in debian/apt.conf.autoremove
  (/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01autoremove) that start with '#' which breaks
  other tools like augeas that follow strictly the definition of
  comments in apt.conf's man page and rely on it to function properly.

  1)
  Description:    Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
  Release:        14.04

  2) apt:
    Installed: 1.0.1ubuntu2
    Candidate: 1.0.1ubuntu2
    Version table:
   *** 1.0.1ubuntu2 0
          500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

  The file can be patched by running:
  $ sed -i "s/#/\/\//" apt.conf.autoremove

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