Re: Bug#686679: RFS: asn1c/0.9.21+dfsg-1 [ITP] -- ASN.1 compiler for C
Arno Toell <at@wavecon.de> writes:
> Yes, using +dfsg is acceptable. I haven't checked it, but I'm pretty
> sure that the +dfsg variant is more common. That said, keep in mind that
> using + or . is not only a stylistic question. It also makes a
> difference sometimes.
+dfsg is preferred over .dfsg because of:
windlord:~> dpkg --compare-versions 1.0.1 '<<' 1.0.dfsg1 && echo true
true
windlord:~> dpkg --compare-versions 1.0.1 '<<' 1.0+dfsg1 && echo true
windlord:~>
In other words, the drawback of .dfsg is that 1.0.dfsg is a *higher*
version number than 1.0.1. So if upstream surprises you and adds a point
release or patch release number to their version, you can end up in a
quandry when using .dfsg.
The difference between 1.0+dfsg1 and 1.0~dfsg1 is more philosophical.
1.0+dfsg1 sorts later than 1.0 as befits a change on top of 1.0, and also
means that when you first discover a problem that requires repacking, you
can produce a version number later than the 1.0 version that might already
be in Debian. 1.0~dfsg1 can't be used for that case (the very first dfsg
version), but has the advantage that, if someone wished, they could easily
use the unmodified upstream tarball with the Debian packaging and change
the version number to remove the ~dfsg1 part to build a local package that
will have a later version than the Debian package.
+dfsg1 is the most popular convention, but some people use ~dfsg1
specifically to gain the above effect. I would recommend against ever
using .dfsg due to the sorting problem with upstream minor versions, since
+dfsg is otherwise equivalent.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Reply to: