NAME¶
Dpkg::Version - handling and comparing dpkg-style version numbers
DESCRIPTION¶
The Dpkg::Version module provides pure-Perl routines to compare dpkg-style
version numbers (as used in Debian packages) and also an object oriented
interface overriding perl operators to do the right thing when you compare
Dpkg::Version object between them.
OBJECT INTERFACE¶
- my $v = Dpkg::Version->new($version, %opts)
- Create a new Dpkg::Version object corresponding to the
version indicated in the string (scalar) $version. By default it will
accepts any string and consider it as a valid version. If you pass the
option "check => 1", it will return undef if the version is
invalid (see version_check for details).
You can always call $v-> is_valid() later on to verify that the
version is valid.
- boolean evaluation
- When the Dpkg::Version object is used in a boolean
evaluation (for example in "if ($v)" or "$v ||
'default'") it returns its string representation if the version
stored is valid ($v-> is_valid()) and undef otherwise.
- $v->is_valid()
- Returns true if the version is valid, false otherwise.
- $v->epoch(), $v->version(),
$v->revision()
- Returns the corresponding part of the full version
string.
- $v1 <=> $v2, $v1 < $v2, $v1 <= $v2, $v1 >
$v2, $v1 >= $v2
- Numerical comparison of various versions numbers. One of
the two operands needs to be a Dpkg::Version, the other one can be
anything provided that its string representation is a version number.
- "$v", $v->as_string()
- Returns the string representation of the version
number.
FUNCTIONS¶
All the functions are exported by default.
- version_compare($a, $b)
- Returns -1 if $a is earlier than $b, 0 if they are equal
and 1 if $a is later than $b.
If $a or $b are not valid version numbers, it dies with an error.
- version_compare_relation($a, $rel, $b)
- Returns the result (0 or 1) of the given comparison
operation. This function is implemented on top of
version_compare().
Allowed values for $rel are the exported constants REL_GT, REL_GE, REL_EQ,
REL_LE, REL_LT. Use version_normalize_relation() if you have an
input string containing the operator.
- my $rel = version_normalize_relation($rel_string)
- Returns the normalized constant of the relation $rel (a
value among REL_GT, REL_GE, REL_EQ, REL_LE and REL_LT). Supported
relations names in input are: "gt", "ge",
"eq", "le", "lt", ">>",
">=", "=", "<=", "<<".
">" and "<" are also supported but should not be
used as they are obsolete aliases of ">=" and
"<=".
- version_compare_string($a, $b)
- String comparison function used for comparing non-numerical
parts of version numbers. Returns -1 if $a is earlier than $b, 0 if they
are equal and 1 if $a is later than $b.
The "~" character always sort lower than anything else. Digits
sort lower than non-digits. Among remaining characters alphabetic
characters (A-Za-z) sort lower than the other ones. Within each range, the
ASCII decimal value of the character is used to sort between
characters.
- version_compare_part($a, $b)
- Compare two corresponding sub-parts of a version number
(either upstream version or debian revision).
Each parameter is split by version_split_digits() and resulting items
are compared together. As soon as a difference happens, it returns -1 if
$a is earlier than $b, 0 if they are equal and 1 if $a is later than
$b.
- my @items = version_split_digits($version)
- Splits a string in items that are each entirely composed
either of digits or of non-digits. For instance for
"1.024~beta1+svn234" it would return ("1",
".", "024", "~beta", "1",
"+svn", "234").
- my ($ok, $msg) = version_check($version)
- my $ok = version_check($version)
- Checks the validity of $version as a version number.
Returns 1 in $ok if the version is valid, 0 otherwise. In the latter case,
$msg contains a description of the problem with the $version scalar.
AUTHOR¶
Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com>, Colin Watson
<cjwatson@debian.org> and Raphaël Hertzog
<hertzog@debian.org>, based on the implementation in
"dpkg/lib/version.c" by Ian Jackson and others.