Re: ls -v is still inconsistent

[Bob Proulx]

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.)

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

Bob

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