Package: dpkg
Version: 1.19.6
Severity: wishlist
File: /usr/share/man/man1/dpkg.1.gz
Man page says
--clear-selections
Set the requested state of every non-essential package to
deinstall
(since dpkg 1.13.18). This is intended to be used
immediately before --set-selections, to deinstall any
packages not in list given to --set-selections.
OK but isn't there little point in dragging in uninstalled packages into
the status file?
# wc -l /var/lib/dpkg/status
39307 /var/lib/dpkg/status
# dpkg --clear-selections
# wc -l /var/lib/dpkg/status
45424 /var/lib/dpkg/status
Also since the name is "--clear-selections" one would think that the
status file would only stay the same or shrink, not in fact grow !
Therefore the man page should mention this side effect of what it also
does.
(P.S., better be ready to restore via status.old after trying this,
else e.g.,
# aptitude full-upgrade
E: Cannot remove aptitude within aptitude
E: Problem parsing '/var/lib/aptitude//pkgstates', is it corrupt or malformed?
You can try to recover from '/var/lib/aptitude//pkgstates.old'.)
