[Pkg-pascal-devel] Version numbers

[Paul Gevers]

Hi Brian,

On 18-11-16 09:28, brian wrote:
> Can you explain this version number to me? Lazarus 1.6.2 has just been
> released on SourceForge, but if I download the .debs and try to
> install with dpkg, then I'm warned that 1.6.2 is a *downgrade* from
> 1.6+dfsg-4, which is obviously not true.

You can check what dpkg thinks of it with the following command
paul at testavoira ~ $ dpkg --compare-versions 1.6.2 gt 1.6+dfsg-4 ; echo $?
0
0 meant true, 1 means not true.

How dpkg must evaluate is described here:
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-Version

> I can only think that this '+' is seen as meaning that 1.6+dfsg-4 is a
> later version than 1.6.2 - am I missing something?

This seems not true:
paul at testavoira ~ $ dpkg --compare-versions "." gt "+" ; echo $?
dpkg: warning: version '.' has bad syntax: version number does not start 
with digit
dpkg: warning: version '+' has bad syntax: version number does not start 
with digit
0
The dot is "larger" than the plus, so it should sort properly.

> Whatever the logic behind the versioning, is there some way to enable
> the installation of new versions from SourceForge in the usual manner,
> i.e. they just install as normal upgrades?

If you want to install from outside of Debian, I wouldn't worry about 
this statement and continue as you wish. The only thing to keep the 
package installed is that you will have to tell apt to not upgrade the 
package:

sudo apt-mark hold lazarus

I don't really see what is going on to be honest.

And thanks for notifying of the new release, I hadn't seen it yet.

Paul