rickysarraf/apt-offline

set command suggests incorrect command-line options order

Opened this issue · 2 comments

Deleted user commented

I couldn't get 1.8.2-1 to work at all, so I checkout the current version of apt-offline for github, but I'm also having issues with it. This first one isn't a big deal, but probably should be fixed.

When running apt-offline set with no additional arguments, the following message is printed:

$ apt-offline set
usage: apt-offline set [-h] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--simulate]
                       [--install-packages [PKG [PKG ...]]]
                       [--install-src-packages [SOURCE PKG [SOURCE PKG ...]]]
                       [--src-build-dep] [--release release_name] [--update]
                       [--upgrade] [--upgrade-type upgrade]
                       [--generate-changelog] [--apt-backend apt-get]
                       apt-offline.sig
apt-offline set: error: the following arguments are required: apt-offline.sig

This arrangement suggests that installing a single package (for instance) would be achieved with the following command:

$ apt-offline set --install-packages bsdgames apt-offline.sig

But as far as I can tell, the proper order is:

$ apt-offline set apt-offline.sig --install-packages bsdgames

rickysarraf commented

I agree on this confusing output. But that order comes from the option parser module provided in Python.

To cut out on the confusion, we documented it with better examples in the manpages.

EXAMPLES
       NOTE: argument/option handling
              apt-offline relies on argparse for argument/option parsing. To explicitly instruct apt-offline about an argument, you can pass it with the -- delimiter.

              Ex. apt-offline set --update --upgrade --install-packages wm2 -- foo.sig

              By specifying the -- delimiter, we instruct apt-offline that foo.sig is an argument to the apt-offline command and not to the --install-packages option.

              Otherwise, you could also use it positionally next to the set command

              Ex. apt-offline set foo.sig --update --upgrade --install-packages wm2

There's not much for apt-offline to do here than documenting about it, which has already been done in the manual pages.

rickysarraf commented

Based on the comment above, I'm closing this bug report.