Bug#205960: Version comparing and ~

[Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>]

> > Around 0.5.5 apt introduced that the tilde character compares to be less
> > than anything else (including the end of the string), e.g.
> > 3.0~rc1-1 < 3.0-1.  This is also the way dpkg compares version strings.
> >
> > In apt 0.5.9 it seems to be gone/broken, it believes 3.0~rc1-1 is newer
> > than 3.0-1.
>
> Are you sure that it actually worked in 0.5.5?  Nothing has changed in that
> area since then, and I just tested with apt 0.5.5.1 and 3.0~rc1-1 compares
> greater than 3.0-1 there as well.

No, I'm not sure :(( I remember I have tested it and it worked correctly
(0.5.5 definitely compared some versions differently than 0.5.4, since the
list of packages 0.5.4 wanted to upgrade differed from what 0.5.5 wanted
to upgrade, having some packages with ~ in their version) but now I can't
reproduce it with older versions (I don't have 0.5.5 source, only 0.5.5.1
and 0.5.[7-9]). Either I'm completely stupid, or it depends on the exact
values of the version strings (heisenbug), or it got broken in 0.5.5.1.

The first entry in 0.5.5's changelog says it should work correctly since
then.

Anyway, no matter if it already worked once or not, it is a bug that
currently it's not working. :-))

Do you have 0.5.5 source? Could you please test with it whether it was
working then, or send the source tarball to me for testing? (It's okay in
email.)



bye,
Egmont