Re: m4_version_compare and new version numbering

[Jim Meyering]

Eric Blake <address@hidden> wrote:

> According to Ralf Wildenhues on 11/3/2007 10:28 AM:
>> * Jim Meyering wrote on Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 08:45:43AM CET:
>>> An alternative is to change the format of the version string, like
>>> git does.  s/-/./g.  They also prepend an alpha ('g') to the SHA1 part.
>>
>> A small data point: I recall Debian disliking '-' in version strings at
>> one point in time, because they like to append their own package version
>> with one or more hyphens.  Dunno how much that matters any more or at
>> all, or if other distros do similar.
>
> True, but since actual distribution tarballs exclude the SHA1 part, and
> git snapshots aren't really meant for distros, I see no conflict between
> distros that use '-' and undistributed snapshots that use '-'.

I've done as proposed to coreutils.
Anyone object to doing it to automake?

2007-11-03  Jim Meyering  <address@hidden>

        Change the first '-' to '.' in the snapshot version string,
        e.g., 6.9-377-08144 -> 6.9.377-08144
        * build-aux/git-version-gen: ... and add comments.

diff --git a/build-aux/git-version-gen b/build-aux/git-version-gen
index c433c26..4e8ffc6 100755
--- a/build-aux/git-version-gen
+++ b/build-aux/git-version-gen
@@ -42,8 +42,9 @@ elif test -d .git \
         *) (exit 1) ;;
        esac
 then
-    # Remove the "g" in git-describe's output string.
-    v=`echo "$v" | sed 's/\(.*\)-g/\1-/'`;
+    # Change the first '-' to a '.', so version-comparing tools work properly.
+    # Remove the "g" in git-describe's output string, to save a byte.
+    v=`echo "$v" | sed 's/-/./;s/\(.*\)-g/\1-/'`;
 else
     v=UNKNOWN
 fi
--
1.5.3.5.529.ge3d6d