Ability to remove formula from user requested installs when it's also a dependency

[jrz]

Verification

• This issue's title and/or description do not reference a single formula e.g. brew install wget. If they do, open an issue at https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/new/choose instead.

Provide a detailed description of the proposed feature

When brew remove [formula] fails because the package is a dependency, it should unmark the user-requested flag.

Instead of doing it automatically (which makes the most sense, as the user is requesting it to be uninstalled), it could also be a flag.

What is the motivation for the feature?

Some formulas are installed because of dependency, but also user-requested. Imagemagick for example. When I want to remove the formula which still has a dependency, I cannot remove it. This is logical. However, I do want it to be removed as "user requested".

This also helps me clean up older brew installations where for example, groonga is listed as user-installed (because of mariadb)

How will the feature be relevant to at least 90% of Homebrew users?

It keeps your list of installed packaged lean and manageable. Allows for better purging/cleaning, and therefore a smaller attack surface as well of course.

What alternatives to the feature have been considered?

Remove all the dependent formulas first, and reinstall everything except the formula I want to have unmarked. For the mariadb/groonga example, I'm unwilling to do so as I'm not sure what happens to the data. I've never requested "groonga".

[gromgit]

However, I do want it to be removed as "user requested".

That's where you can tell Homebrew what you want with brew tab --no-installed-on-request <formula>.

If it were unmarked automatically on removal failure, you won't even know that it happened when you do change your mind at a later date, and end up filing a bug report that "why did brew automatically uninstall imagemagick when I specifically installed it manually?!?!" That would lead us Homebrew volunteers on a wild good chase, and we wouldn't want that to happen.

[jrz]

Ahh that makes sense. Didn't know about this tab feature. Perhaps a message when it was actually user-requested could make sense

[MikeMcQuaid]

Thanks for the idea, as @gromgit said: passing on this for now but if we get this request more in future I'd consider it.