From 4713d124d3233f6c3c4898808cf1b53e1fcdb87b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 00:50:10 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Document ~ behavior in version numbers
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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
---
 debian/changelog         |  7 +++++++
 policy.sgml              | 18 +++++++++++++-----
 upgrading-checklist.html |  3 +++
 3 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 2c0734b..911135c 100644
--- 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 ba97952..4acf402 100644
--- 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 0cb73b8..4fe8c71 100644
--- 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]
-- 
2.39.5