dpkg and alpha/beta versioning (Was: Uploaded mpsql 2.0-1)
Gregory S. Stark writes:
> this problem keeps coming up. i was thinking it would be handy to have a
> character that is defined to sort before 0 and before the empty string.
> tilde seems like the best choice to me, so something like:
>
> krb4-0.9.9~980514
> fltk-0.9.9~980527
> mpsql-2.0~b1
>
> which i think is probably clearer than what i actually did:
>
> krb4-0.9.8.980514
> fltk-0.9.8.980527
This is a simple idea. IIRC, as the ~ char is not not allowed for now
in version numbers, it could work.
I remember of another proposal of extension of version syntax which
was proposed (probably on deb-dev), which IIRC was to use an
epoch-like syntax like 0.1:1.2-3, which did not contaminate all future
versions with the epoch (which was, as I understand it, one of the
arguments epoch's "enemies" have). I don't remember the (IIRC a bit
hairy) exact semantics, but maybe it's worth studying further.
Another problem we'll have will be what version-string to present the
user to make it understand it's alpha/beta/whatever. Either
extensions (tilde and dotted-epoch) are non-trivial as such, and
should only be used IMHO as an internal (ie. for dpkg and developpers,
and not for users) representation.
If we're at last going to discuss these issues, I'm volunteering to
coordinate the discussion and post summaries of the discussion's
progress.
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