[Bug 1632392] [NEW] Unicode spaces in sources.list files are not interpreted as spaces

[Chris Mazuc]

Public bug reported:

I was troubleshooting an issue where apt was unable to update after
copying the sources.list from another machine. It turns out the user was
copy/pasting from an IM client that converted some whitespace to unicode
non-breaking spaces.

To reproduce:

echo deb $'\302'$'\240'http://site.example.com/debian distribution
component | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bugged.list

12.04 and 14.04 results in immediate failure to update:

$ sudo apt-get update
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/ http could not be found.

APT in 16.04 seems to handle this a bit more sanely:

$ sudo apt-get update
Hit:1 [removed]
Reading package lists... Done
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/ http could not be found.
E: Failed to fetch  http://site.example.com/debian/dists/distribution/InRelease  
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

** Affects: apt (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1632392

Title:
  Unicode spaces in sources.list files are not interpreted as spaces

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I was troubleshooting an issue where apt was unable to update after
  copying the sources.list from another machine. It turns out the user
  was copy/pasting from an IM client that converted some whitespace to
  unicode non-breaking spaces.

  To reproduce:

  echo deb $'\302'$'\240'http://site.example.com/debian distribution
  component | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bugged.list

  12.04 and 14.04 results in immediate failure to update:

  $ sudo apt-get update
  E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/ http could not be found.

  APT in 16.04 seems to handle this a bit more sanely:

  $ sudo apt-get update
  Hit:1 [removed]
  Reading package lists... Done
  E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/ http could not be found.
  E: Failed to fetch  http://site.example.com/debian/dists/distribution/InRelease  
  E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

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