Re: ls -v is still inconsistent

[Kamil Dudka]

On Friday 20 of March 2009 22:25:30 Bob Proulx wrote:
> Kamil Dudka wrote:
> > On Friday 20 of March 2009 12:36:38 Bruno Haible wrote:
> > > Jim Meyering wrote:
> > > > Perhaps "~" isn't the only character we should treat that way.
> > >
> > > I'd say that '~' is pretty special here because it's used as backup
> > > file suffix by many text editors. Which is not the case for '_', '-',
> > > and others.
> >
> > Definitely. The main difference is that '_' and (especially) '-' are
> > version number's separators, we can't easy cut them off. AFAIK '~' is
> > never used as a version separator.
>
> The '~' is often used in package version numbers.  It sorts before the
> version without it.  For example the rule[1] for generating a stable
> backport from the latest unstable version in Debian is: ``Append
> "~bpo${debian_release}+${build_int}" to the version number,
> e.g. "1.2.3-4" now becomes "1.2.3-4~bpo50+1", or for native packages,
> "1.2.3" becomes "1.2.3~bpo50+1".''  (In this way the newer package,
> when available, will upgrade and replace the backport.)

Thanks for insight!

> Is that a version separator or part of the version number?  I am not
> going to language lawyer it but will simply point out a common use of
> it related to this.
>
>   example_1.2.3-4~bpo40+1_all.deb
>   example_1.2.3-4~bpo50+1_all.deb
>   example_1.2.3-4~bpo50+2_all.deb
>   example_1.2.3-4_all.deb

In this example the regex matches only ".deb" as the file suffix. The current 
filevercmp implementation works here as well as the patched one.

> Bob
>
> [1] http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=contribute

I'll look at it deeper next week and check if the new regex works in all 
cases.


Kamil