Dpkg::Version(3perl)

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.

METHODS

$v = Dpkg::Version->new($version, %opts)
    Create a new Dpkg::Version object corresponding to the version indicated in the string (scalar) $version. By default it will accept any string and consider it as a valid version, but this can be controlled with the "check" option.

    You can always call $v->is_valid() later on to verify that the version is valid.

    Options:

    check
        Setting this option to true will return undef if the version is invalid (see $v->version_check() for details).

boolean evaluation
    When the Dpkg::Version object is used in a boolean evaluation (for example in "if ($v)" or "$v ? \"$v\" : 'default'") it returns true if the version stored is valid ($v->is_valid()) and false otherwise.

    Notice: Between dpkg 1.15.7.2 and 1.19.1 this overload used to return $v->as_string() if $v->is_valid(), a breaking change in behavior that caused "0" versions to be evaluated as false. To catch any possibly intended code that relied on those semantics, this overload emitted a warning with category "Dpkg::Version::semantic_change::overload::bool" between dpkg 1.19.1 and 1.20.0. Once fixed, or for already valid code the warning could be quiesced for that specific versions with

      no if $Dpkg::Version::VERSION eq '1.02',
         warnings => qw(Dpkg::Version::semantic_change::overload::bool);

    added after the "use Dpkg::Version".

$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.

$v->is_native()
    Returns true if the version is native, false if it has a revision.

    Note: On some vendors, dpkg has been made incoherent, and a native source package format can end up having a non-native version, adding to the confusion of the whole concept. And while this method would be fine to be used on vendors that have a coherent native source concept, this is not a pattern that will be portably relied on. Thus this method is being deprecated. Depending on the context, using the $v->has_revision() method might be sensible.

$v->has_epoch()
    Returns true if the version has an epoch, false otherwise.

$v->has_revision()
    Returns true if the version has a revision, false otherwise.

$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(), $v->as_string(%opts)
    Accepts an optional option hash reference, affecting the string conversion.

    Options:

    omit_epoch (defaults to 0)
        Omit the epoch, if present, in the output string.

    omit_revision (defaults to 0)
        Omit the revision, if present, in the output 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.

$rel = version_normalize_relation($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-Z, a-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.

@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").

($ok, $msg) = version_check($version)
$ok = version_check($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.

CHANGES

  Version 1.05 (dpkg 1.23.3)
New methods: $v->has_epoch(), $v->has_revision().

  Version 1.04 (dpkg 1.23.0)
Deprecated method: $v->is_native().

  Version 1.03 (dpkg 1.20.0)
Remove deprecation warning from semantic change in 1.02.

  Version 1.02 (dpkg 1.19.1)
Semantic change: bool evaluation semantics restored to their original behavior.

  Version 1.01 (dpkg 1.17.0)
New argument: Accept an options argument in $v->as_string().

New method: $v->is_native().

  Version 1.00 (dpkg 1.15.6)
Mark the module as public.