VERCMP(8) Pacman Manual VERCMP(8)

vercmp - version comparison utility

vercmp [-h] [--help] <version1> <version2>

vercmp is used to determine the relationship between two given version numbers. It outputs values as follows:

•< 0 : if ver1 < ver2
•= 0 : if ver1 == ver2
•> 0 : if ver1 > ver2

Version comparison operates as follows:

Alphanumeric:
  1.0a < 1.0b < 1.0beta < 1.0p < 1.0pre < 1.0rc < 1.0 < 1.0.a < 1.0.1
Numeric:
  1 < 1.0 < 1.1 < 1.1.1 < 1.2 < 2.0 < 3.0.0

Additionally, version strings can have an epoch value defined that will overrule any version comparison, unless the epoch values are equal. This is specified in an epoch:version-rel format. For example, 2:1.0-1 is always greater than 1:3.6-1.

Keep in mind that the pkgrel is only compared if it is available on both versions given to this tool. For example, comparing 1.5-1 and 1.5 will yield 0; comparing 1.5-1 and 1.5-2 will yield < 0 as expected. This is mainly for supporting versioned dependencies that do not include the pkgrel.

-h, --help

Display summary of the available return codes. Must be the first option specified.

$ vercmp 1 2
-1
$ vercmp 2 1
1
$ vercmp 2.0-1 1.7-6
1
$ vercmp 2.0 2.0-13
0
$ vercmp 4.34 1:001
-1

pacman(8), makepkg(8), libalpm(3)

See the pacman website at https://archlinux.org/pacman/ for current information on pacman and its related tools.

Bugs? You must be kidding; there are no bugs in this software. But if we happen to be wrong, submit a bug report with as much detail as possible at the Arch Linux Bug Tracker in the Pacman section.

Current maintainers:

•Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org>
•Andrew Gregory <andrew.gregory.8@gmail.com>
•Morgan Adamiec <morganamilo@archlinux.org>

Past major contributors:

•Judd Vinet <jvinet@zeroflux.org>
•Aurelien Foret <aurelien@archlinux.org>
•Aaron Griffin <aaron@archlinux.org>
•Dan McGee <dan@archlinux.org>
•Xavier Chantry <shiningxc@gmail.com>
•Nagy Gabor <ngaba@bibl.u-szeged.hu>
•Dave Reisner <dreisner@archlinux.org>
•Eli Schwartz <eschwartz@archlinux.org>

For additional contributors, use git shortlog -s on the pacman.git repository.

2024-03-15 Pacman 6.1.0