[Bug 1693900] Re: apt-get update should return exit code != 0 on error

[Jarno Suni]

Because of this bug ppa-purge misbehaves (Bug #1514839). Should one
inspect the output of apt-get for '^Err:' (from standard output) or even
'^W:' (from standard error) to determine, if it updated the repositories
or not? Besides the output of `apt-get update` varies between versions
in supported Ubuntu releases: In Ubuntu 14.04 it does not print ':'
after 'Err', but ' ', instead.

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Title:
  apt-get update should return exit code != 0 on error

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  When running 'apt-get update' (e.g. on a container install post-
  install script), apt-get return with exit code 0, even so it wasn't
  able to "update" properly. E.g.:

  + apt-get update
  Err:1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
    Temporary failure resolving 'de.archive.ubuntu.com'
  Err:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease
    Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
  Err:3 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease
    Temporary failure resolving 'de.archive.ubuntu.com'
  Reading package lists... Done
  W: Failed to fetch http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'de.archive.ubuntu.com'
  W: Failed to fetch http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-updates/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'de.archive.ubuntu.com'
  W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-security/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
  W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

  It should be corrected to return useful exit code, so that scripts can
  take the appropriate actions ...

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