Document ~ behavior in version numbers

Allow ~ in package versions and update the sorting rules to reflect ~'s
behavior of sorting before any other character or the empty string.
Thanks to Nicolas François and Marc Brockschmidt for wording
suggestions.

git-archimport-id: rra@debian.org--lenny/debian-policy--devel--3.7--patch-1

diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 2c0734bad89397c0f76d36373fb6a4666729e366..911135c82967da469ea7a743bfc61ec66698c6d2 100644 (file)
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+debian-policy (3.7.3.0) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
+
+  * Bug fix: "[PROPOSAL] Document ~ behavior in version numbers", thanks
+    to Nicolas François and Marc Brockschmidt                (Closes: #382612).
+
+ --
+
 debian-policy (3.7.2.2) unstable; urgency=low
 
   * Bug fix: "clarify 12.3 Additional documentation", thanks to Peter

diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index ba979527fef5c367ebb91c7cf5bc63a229624cf4..4acf40208928c56f9b8714d558e0e0e3f617f288 100644 (file)
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -2649,8 +2649,8 @@ Package: libc6
                        Alphanumerics are <tt>A-Za-z0-9</tt> only.
                  </footnote>
                  and the characters <tt>.</tt> <tt>+</tt> <tt>-</tt>
-                 <tt>:</tt> (full stop, plus, hyphen, colon) and should
-                 start with a digit.  If there is no
+                 <tt>:</tt> <tt>~</tt> (full stop, plus, hyphen, colon,
+                 tilde) and should start with a digit.  If there is no
                  <var>debian_revision</var> then hyphens are not allowed;
                  if there is no <var>epoch</var> then colons are not
                  allowed.
@@ -2663,8 +2663,8 @@ Package: libc6
                  This part of the version number specifies the version of
                  the Debian package based on the upstream version.  It
                  may contain only alphanumerics and the characters
-                 <tt>+</tt> and <tt>.</tt> (plus and full stop) and is
-                 compared in the same way as the
+                 <tt>+</tt> <tt>.</tt> <tt>~</tt> (plus, full stop,
+                 tilde) and is compared in the same way as the
                  <var>upstream_version</var> is.
                </p>
 
@@ -2713,7 +2713,15 @@ Package: libc6
            which may be empty) are compared lexically.  If a difference
            is found it is returned.  The lexical comparison is a
            comparison of ASCII values modified so that all the letters
-           sort earlier than all the non-letters.
+           sort earlier than all the non-letters and so that a tilde
+           sorts before anything, even the end of a part.  For example,
+           the following parts are in sorted order from earliest to
+           latest: <tt>~~</tt>, <tt>~~a</tt>, <tt>~</tt>, the empty part,
+           <tt>a</tt>.<footnote>
+             One common use of <tt>~</tt> is for upstream pre-releases.
+             For example, <tt>1.0~beta1~svn1245</tt> sorts earlier than
+             <tt>1.0~beta1</tt>, which sorts earlier than <tt>1.0</tt>.
+           </footnote>
          </p>
 
          <p>

diff --git a/upgrading-checklist.html b/upgrading-checklist.html
index 0cb73b8f04ffa030269938f775b4687bde82c1c6..4fe8c7164859466344974bae08a103495f6bdd34 100644 (file)
--- a/upgrading-checklist.html
+++ b/upgrading-checklist.html
@@ -53,6 +53,9 @@ picking your way through this list.
 <h2>The checklist</h2>
 
 <pre>
+3.7.3.0                        unreleased
+     * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
+       anything, even the end of a part.                         [5.6.12]
 3.7.2.2                        Oct 2006
      * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
        should to a must)                                         [6.1]