How do I remove debian packages using python apt API - python-2.7

Question

I'm was trying this on Linux mint. I have been researching on how to remove packages using the python-apt API. The piece of code below was all I could come up with but nothing happens when I run it. I am trying to remove a single package right now but later I would like to remove a list of packages from a text file. I tried to use the answer found in this post and re-engineered it for removing but my logic does not work. Please give me some input.
#!/usr/bin/env python
# aptuninnstall.py
import apt
import sys
def remove():
pkg_name = "chromium-browser"
cache = apt.cache.Cache()
cache.update()
pkg = cache[pkg_name]
pkg.marked_delete
resolver = apt.cache.ProblemResolver(cache)
for pkg in cache.get_changes():
if pkg.is_installed:
resolver.remove(pkg)
else:
print (pkg_name + " not installed so not removed")
try:
cache.commit()
except Exception, arg:
print >> sys.stderr, "Sorry, package removal failed [{err}]".format(err=str(arg))
remove()

Answer 1

After reading the docs and trying different things, I more or less fixed my problem by coming up with the code below. If someone has a better way, please post. I still want to learn a lot
#!/usr/bin/env python
# aptremove.py
import apt
import apt_pkg
import sys
def remove():
pkg_name = "chromium-browser"
cache = apt.cache.Cache()
cache.open(None)
pkg = cache[pkg_name]
cache.update()
pkg.mark_delete(True, purge=True)
resolver = apt.cache.ProblemResolver(cache)
if pkg.is_installed is False:
print (pkg_name + " not installed so not removed")
else:
for pkg in cache.get_changes():
if pkg.mark_delete:
print pkg_name + " is installed and will be removed"
print " %d package(s) will be removed" % cache.delete_count
resolver.remove(pkg)
try:
cache.commit()
cache.close()
except Exception, arg:
print >> sys.stderr, "Sorry, package removal failed [{err}]".format(err=str(arg))
remove()
In order to get the package list from a file, I took this approach for now.
#!/usr/bin/env python
# aptremove.py
import apt
import apt_pkg
import sys
def remove():
cache = apt.cache.Cache()
cache.open(None)
resolver = apt.cache.ProblemResolver(cache)
with open("apps-to-remove") as input:
for pkg_name in input:
pkg = cache[pkg_name.strip()]
pkg.mark_delete(True, purge=True)
input.close()
cache.update()
if pkg.is_installed is False:
print (pkg_name + " not installed so not removed")
else:
for pkg in cache.get_changes():
if pkg.mark_delete:
print pkg_name + " is installed and will be removed"
print " %d package(s) will be removed" % cache.delete_count
resolver.remove(pkg)
try:
cache.commit()
cache.close()
print "starting"
except Exception, arg:
print >> sys.stderr, "Sorry, package removal failed [{err}]".format(err=str(arg))
remove()