Re: [gentoo-dev] Request to add ~> atom prefix operator on Portage.

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Tue, 15 Sep 2015, konsolebox  wrote:

> Here are my issues if we try to modify =* and not add another operator:

> 1) We'll completely abandon having an operator that matches the
> remaining parts of a version number for good: =cat/foo-5.2015* would
> no longer work.

If you look at the history, this kind of string prefix matching was
never intended. AFAICS, the "*" operator appeared in 2001 in Portage
1.6.12, and was first mentioned here:
https://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/sys-apps/portage/files/1.5/pym/portage.py?r1=1.43&r2=1.44

The comment there says that it should match "really minor" versions
and lists two examples: foo-1.0* will match 1.0.3, and glib-1.2* will
match glib-1.2, glib-1.2-r1, glib-1.2.1 and glib-1.2.1.1-r1, but will
not match glib-1.3.

> 2) We'll have to decide if we should remove the leading zeros of a
> version number: should 5.01.0 and and 5.1.2 be the matched the same
> if I used =5.01*?

Bad choice of example, as 5.01 and 5.1 are different versions (with
5.01 < 5.1 as one would expect). So, for a valid example you should
ask instead: "Should 5.010.0 and 5.01.2 be matched the same if I used
=5.010*?"

> We can only either allow it or not. We keep one feature, we lose the
> other feature. If we use another operator, =5.01* could just stay
> strict on matching 5.01*, whereas the operator could have the
> function of treating them like decimals instead. We can keep =* have
> the string matching feature while have another operator do the
> more-on-arithmetic one.

We consider 5.01 and 5.010 as equal versions. Also note that =5.010
will match both of them. So the only sensible behaviour is if =5.010*
matches all of 5.01, 5.010, 5.0100, 5.010.0, and 5.01.2.

Having an operator that allows to distinguish between equal versions
makes no sense.

Ulrich