| Subject: | Understand X.Y.Z versions |
Since perl 5.6.0 came out, some modules have started using a similar
style of version number with several parts separated by dots. There
are other reasons why a version number might not be a simple number,
eg '5.42a'. These versions cause MakeMaker to grumble with
Argument "0.4.1" isn't numeric in numeric lt (<)
at /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm line 359.
and I suspect the dependency checking is not correct. The following
patch copies the comparison code from Sort::Versions, which should do
the right thing in most cases.
--- ExtUtils-MakeMaker-6.21/lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm 2003-11-11 08:07:36.000000000 +0000
+++ ExtUtils-MakeMaker-6.21-new/lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm 2004-01-04 11:02:28.159551064 +0000
@@ -345,6 +345,48 @@
END
}
+# Code to compare version numbers, copied from Sort::Versions.
+sub versioncmp( $$ ) {
+ my @A = ($_[0] =~ /([-.]|\d+|[^-.\d]+)/g);
+ my @B = ($_[1] =~ /([-.]|\d+|[^-.\d]+)/g);
+
+ my ($A, $B);
+ while (@A and @B) {
+ $A = shift @A;
+ $B = shift @B;
+ if ($A eq '-' and $B eq '-') {
+ next;
+ } elsif ( $A eq '-' ) {
+ return -1;
+ } elsif ( $B eq '-') {
+ return 1;
+ } elsif ($A eq '.' and $B eq '.') {
+ next;
+ } elsif ( $A eq '.' ) {
+ return -1;
+ } elsif ( $B eq '.' ) {
+ return 1;
+ } elsif ($A =~ /^\d+$/ and $B =~ /^\d+$/) {
+ if ($A =~ /^0/ || $B =~ /^0/) {
+ return $A cmp $B if $A cmp $B;
+ } else {
+ return $A <=> $B if $A <=> $B;
+ }
+ } else {
+ $A = uc $A;
+ $B = uc $B;
+ return $A cmp $B if $A cmp $B;
+ }
+ }
+ @A <=> @B;
+}
+
+# $a < $b in version number terms.
+sub version_lt( $$ ) {
+ my ($a, $b) = @_;
+ return(versioncmp($a, $b) < 0);
+}
+
sub new {
my($class,$self) = @_;
my($key);
@@ -397,7 +439,7 @@
$prereq, $self->{PREREQ_PM}{$prereq}
unless $self->{PREREQ_FATAL};
$unsatisfied{$prereq} = 'not installed';
- } elsif ($pr_version < $self->{PREREQ_PM}->{$prereq} ){
+ } elsif (version_lt($pr_version, $self->{PREREQ_PM}->{$prereq})){
warn sprintf "Warning: prerequisite %s %s not found. We have %s.\n",
$prereq, $self->{PREREQ_PM}{$prereq},
($pr_version || 'unknown version')
This change doesn't have any weird platform dependencies so the
question of whether to apply it is the question of whether MakeMaker
should understand these newfangled 'numbers'. I think it should.
Please have a look at Sort::Versions and its test suite if you wonder
exactly how it does the comparison; in almost all cases the result for
two decimal numbers will be the same as <, the exception being that
'1.20' < '1.123'. (But '1.200' > '1.123' and '1.02' < '1.1'.)
I hope you can apply the patch, or at least a weaker version that does
the fancy comparison only if one of the versions cannot be a plain
number.