Add with pkgCacheGen::Essential a way to control which packages get the

[apt.git] / doc / apt.conf.5.xml

diff --git a/doc/apt.conf.5.xml b/doc/apt.conf.5.xml
index e568baa35655efd30a1a468818ae62efdaa99841..c13ad486739d3842375cd2496fc12c502bcebe5a 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/apt.conf.5.xml
+++ b/doc/apt.conf.5.xml
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
    &apt-email;
    &apt-product;
    <!-- The last update date -->
-   <date>18 September 2009</date>
+   <date>16 January 2010</date>
  </refentryinfo>
  
  <refmeta>
@@ -37,16 +37,27 @@
  </refnamediv>
  
  <refsect1><title>Description</title>
-   <para><filename>apt.conf</filename> is the main configuration file for the APT suite of
-   tools, all tools make use of the configuration file and a common command line
-   parser to provide a uniform environment. When an APT tool starts up it will
-   read the configuration specified by the <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar> environment 
-   variable (if any) and then read the files in <literal>Dir::Etc::Parts</literal> 
-   then read the main configuration file specified by 
-   <literal>Dir::Etc::main</literal> then finally apply the
-   command line options to override the configuration directives, possibly 
-   loading even more config files.</para>
-
+ <para><filename>apt.conf</filename> is the main configuration file for
+   the APT suite of tools, but by far not the only place changes to options
+   can be made. All tools therefore share the configuration files and also
+   use a common command line parser to provide a uniform environment.</para>
+   <orderedlist>
+      <para>When an APT tool starts up it will read the configuration files
+      in the following order:</para>
+      <listitem><para>the file specified by the <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>
+        environment variable (if any)</para></listitem>
+      <listitem><para>all files in <literal>Dir::Etc::Parts</literal> in
+        alphanumeric ascending order which have no or "<literal>conf</literal>"
+        as filename extension and which only contain alphanumeric,
+        hyphen (-), underscore (_) and period (.) characters -
+        otherwise they will be silently ignored.</para></listitem>
+      <listitem><para>the main configuration file specified by
+        <literal>Dir::Etc::main</literal></para></listitem>
+      <listitem><para>the command line options are applied to override the
+        configuration directives or to load even more configuration files.</para></listitem>
+   </orderedlist>
+   </refsect1>
+   <refsect1><title>Syntax</title>
    <para>The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
    functional groups. Option specification is given with a double colon
    notation, for instance <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> is an option within