[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #55798] Support octave packages with "-dev" in version

[Colin Macdonald]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?55798>

                 Summary: Support octave packages with "-dev" in version
                 Project: GNU Octave
            Submitted by: cbm
            Submitted on: Thu 28 Feb 2019 08:45:31 PM UTC
                Category: Documentation
                Severity: 3 - Normal
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Documentation
                  Status: None
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: 
        Originator Email: 
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: dev
        Operating System: Any

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Details:

TL;DR:

How would you feel about changing [1] to say:


 Version
 
-     Version of the package. A package version must be 3 numbers separated by
dots.
+     Version of the package. A package version is usually 3 numbers separated
by dots.


[1] https://octave.org/doc/v5.1.0/The-DESCRIPTION-File.html:

- - - - - -

It's always bothered me that DESCRIPTION doesn't seem to allow versions like
"0.7.0-dev".


I just tried using "0.7.0-dev".  Nothing horrible happened:



Package Name        | Version   | Installation directory
--------------------+-----------+-----------------------
             bsltl  |     1.1.1 | /home/cbm/octave/bsltl-1.1.1
           control  |     3.1.0 | /home/cbm/octave/control-3.1.0
           doctest *| 0.7.0-dev | /home/cbm/octave/doctest-0.7.0-dev
           general  |     2.1.0 | /home/cbm/octave/general-2.1.0



A quick look at the code of pkg.m suggests it uses "compare_versions", which
does something with such strings:



octave:18> compare_versions ('0.7.0-dev', '0.7.0', '>')
ans = 1
octave:19> compare_versions ('0.7.0', '0.7.0-dev', '<=')
ans = 1
octave:20> compare_versions ('0.7.1', '0.7.0-dev', '>')
ans = 1


I personally prefer the semantics that 0.7.0-dev comes before 0.7.0 but I
could certainly live with the above.

Benefits:

  - users would be able to try a dev version and later upgrade automatically
when the package release came.
  - devs would be able to trust "pkg list" output in bug reports.





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