[lug] rpm version comparison

[John Hernandez]

That's great information.  Thanks, Sean.

Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> This doesn't address the "epoch" of a package, which usually doesn't show
> up in the package version.  The epoch trumps the version.  So, taking for
> example:
> 
>    [2] guin:jafo# rpm -qa --queryformat '%{name} %{epoch} %{version}\n' | tail
>    glibc (none) 2.2.4
>    fetchmail (none) 5.9.11
>    grip 1 3.0.0
>    ppp (none) 2.4.1
>    python2-tools (none) 2.2.1
>    tcpdump 13 3.6.2
>    krud-release (none) 20020501
>    rsync (none) 2.5.4
>    mozilla-psm 35 1.0.0
>    gnome-vfs-devel (none) 1.0.3.90
> 
> you see that "grip" has an epoch of 1.  So, grip version "3.0.0 epoch 1" is
> more recent than, for example, grip "4.3.2 epoch 0".
> 
> The epoch is simply a mechanism to force resolution of issues caused by
> changing or otherwise funky naming schemes.
> 
> For example, python 2.2.1c3 taken without an epoch would be *MORE RECENT*
> than 2.2.1.  However, in the Python release process, 2.2.1c3 is the third
> release canidate, and is therefore younger than 2.2.1 proper.
> 


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