Re: Correcting a version number

[Andreas Metzler <ametzler@bebt.de>]

Daniel Lintott <daniel@serverb.co.uk> wrote:
[..]
> I have realised that in an earlier package upload, I made a blunder
> with regards the version of the package.

> The package was versioned as 0.5b0-1, though I somehow missed, despite
> testing the watch file that this should have been 0.5~b0-1.

> I have seen some discussion on correcting the version number, either
> by using an epoch or by adding an additional part to the version number.

> - From what I can see, the only way to fix the version number here is to
> use an epoch, but from what I've this should be avoided if possible,
> so does anyone have any other suggestion on how to correct this
> version number?
[...]

Hello,

I do not think there are any other reasonable[1] possibilities
available. You can either use an epoch (forever) or live with a ugly
version number for some time.

Personally I would use an ugly version number for the 0.5 release:

Upstream   Debian
0.5b0      0.5b0-1
0.5b1      0.5b1-1
...
0.5rc1     0.5rc1-1
...
0.5        0.5+rel-1
0.6b0      0.6~b1

(Please doublcheck the sorting with dpkg --compare-versions, I might
have made an error, too. ;-)

hth, cu Andreas

[1] renaming the package does not count.
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