Package: aptitude Version: 0.8.3-1+b2 Followup-For: Bug #834402
I also consider this a regression. For instance, see this example: aptitude -s search -F '%c%M %p' '~i' > status.txt The width doesn't matter, I'm logging the output for archival. I actually *want* infinite width. But %M is now expanded to the empty string when missing, causing the output to be mis-aligned. Fine, but consider the following tweak: aptitude -s search -F '%c%1M %p' '~i' > status.txt it *still* expands to empty, even though I'm requesting 1 column of output with %1M in any condition. This is broken. -- Package-specific info: Terminal: rxvt-unicode-256color $DISPLAY is set. which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude aptitude version information: aptitude 0.8.3 Compiler: g++ 6.2.0 20161103 Compiled against: apt version 5.0.0 NCurses version 6.0 libsigc++ version: 2.10.0 Gtk+ support disabled. Qt support disabled. Current library versions: NCurses version: ncurses 6.0.20160917 cwidget version: 0.5.17 Apt version: 5.0.0 aptitude linkage: linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffcd5b67000) libapt-pkg.so.5.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.5.0 (0x00007fb2ddf5f000) libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007fb2ddd2f000) libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007fb2ddb05000) libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fb2dd8fe000) libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007fb2dd601000) libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007fb2dd2f7000) libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fb2dd0df000) libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fb2dcec6000) libboost_system.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fb2dccc2000) libxapian.so.30 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxapian.so.30 (0x00007fb2dc8b4000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fb2dc697000) libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007fb2dc314000) libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fb2dc010000) libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fb2dbdf9000) libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fb2dba5b000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fb2db857000) libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007fb2db640000) libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fb2db424000) libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007fb2db214000) liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007fb2dafee000) liblz4.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblz4.so.1 (0x00007fb2daddc000) librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fb2dabd4000) libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007fb2da9cd000) /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x000055d973091000) -- System Information: Debian Release: stretch/sid APT prefers unstable APT policy: (900, 'unstable'), (800, 'experimental') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 4.8.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) Versions of packages aptitude depends on: ii aptitude-common 0.8.3-1 ii libapt-pkg5.0 1.3.1 ii libboost-filesystem1.62.0 1.62.0+dfsg-4 ii libboost-iostreams1.62.0 1.62.0+dfsg-4 ii libboost-system1.62.0 1.62.0+dfsg-4 ii libc6 2.24-5 ii libcwidget3v5 0.5.17-4+b1 ii libgcc1 1:6.2.0-13 ii libncursesw5 6.0+20160917-1 ii libsigc++-2.0-0v5 2.10.0-1 ii libsqlite3-0 3.15.1-1 ii libstdc++6 6.2.0-13 ii libtinfo5 6.0+20160917-1 ii libxapian30 1.4.1-1 Versions of packages aptitude recommends: ii libparse-debianchangelog-perl 1.2.0-11 ii sensible-utils 0.0.9 Versions of packages aptitude suggests: ii apt-xapian-index 0.49 pn aptitude-doc-en | aptitude-doc <none> ii debtags 2.1.2 pn tasksel <none>