I have never noticed this pattern before in any dependencies I've looked at, is this normal?
extra/cifs-utils 6.11-3 [installed]
    CIFS filesystem user-space tools
obextra/smbclient 4.13.3-3 [installed]
    Tools to access a server's filespace and printers via SMB
extra/smbclient 4.13.4-1 [installed: 4.13.3-3]
    Tools to access a server's filespace and printers via SMB
% pactree -r smbclient
smbclient
├─cifs-utils
│ └─smbclient
└─mplayer
% pactree -r cifs-utils
cifs-utils
└─smbclient
  ├─cifs-utils
  └─mplayer
This means that both have to be installed together for each to be functional, so interdependent?
cifs-utils depends on libwbclient.so and this library is provided by smbclient package, so yes interdependent. But if you only have the libwbclient installed on your system, cifs-utils should works. Maybe a split of the libwbclient from the smbclient could be better.

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