"apt-get -s --print-uris update" does not work on Tahr

Well, this is intended behavior as our commandline parser got stricter and allows/forbids options based on the subcommands (like update) instead of accepting and possibly silently ignoring all options for every subcommand confusing the hell out of users and developers alike.

Simulation (-s) is e.g. a option which had no effect for "update". And it has also semantically no effect as "--print-uris" already expresses the wish to do 'nothing'.

So, if this is just muscle memory, it might be painful, but I would like to ask you to retrain yourself. After all: Less typing for the same effect! ;)
If you happen to use that in a script, changing would be a good idea here, too, as said, in this case the behavior does not change at all, so you can remove it and still support any apt version as before.
In the (unlikely) even this is a very very important application hard-depending on this which can't be fixed easily, please reopen the bug and we will figure something out as a temporary workaround.

I got the phrasing from apt-python, who mention it in their tutorials. e.g. in the second paragraph of http://apt.alioth.debian.org/python-apt-doc/tutorials/apt-get.html

I'll suggest it to them to change their tutorial to remove the -s as it is superfluous.

I believe I added the -s to the example in the python-apt documentation because earlier versions of APT tried to lock if only --print-uris was specified. But if that's not a problem anymore, I should remove it.

(History-digging response) After sending my reply I actually wondered about the lock as well: A simple test revivaled that the current version has no problem with it, but now I had a closer look: I vaguely remember problems with locking as well, but I am not sure if that was related to 'update'. A casual look for changes in that area leads me to git commit 1cd1c398 from 4 years ago, which looks a bit like it could be the fix for this.

commit 2884948fb3cb9ad0c660380ec07412086e164f31
Author: Julian Andres Klode <email address hidden>
Date: Tue Jul 8 15:31:01 2014 +0200

    doc/source/tutorials/apt-get.rst: Remove -s from --print-uris invocation

    This is not needed with APT 1.0 and does not work anymore.

    LP: #1308670
    Reported-by: Sean Payne <email address hidden>

This bug was fixed in the package python-apt - 0.9.3.10

---------------
python-apt (0.9.3.10) unstable; urgency=medium

  * python/tag.cc: ensure that the final \n is there when
    duplicating section data
  * apt/debfile.py:
    - Stop reading after the "Format" stanza in a .dsc file
    - Add support for apt.debfile.DscSrcPackage.filelist
    - Read all tags from a dsc file and improve tests
  * fix tests when gnupg is < 1.4.18
  * update python-apt.pot

 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Thu, 04 Sep 2014 18:07:41 +0200