Bug#189518: dpkg --compare-versions and epochs

[Josip Rodin <joy@srce.hr>]

On Fri, Apr 18, 2003 at 10:32:49AM -0400, Paul Kimoto wrote:
> Package: dpkg
> Version: 1.10.9
> 
> hostap-source_2002.10.12-2_all.deb is older than
> hostap-source_1%3a0.0.1-1_all.deb.  Is there a way to get
> "dpkg --compare-versions" to verify this?  It appears to
> behave incorrectly:
> 
> # dpkg --compare-versions 1%3a0.0.1-1 gt 2002.10.12-2 ; echo $?
> 1

%3a is the HTML encoding for the colon character :)

% dpkg --compare-versions 1:0.0.1-1 gt 2002.10.12-2 ; echo $?
0

I suspect your problem is something else, with APT, because APT is the only
thing that does this perverted encoding and occasionally displays it to the
users.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.