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📛 NAME

Dpkg::Version — handling and comparing dpkg-style version numbers

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
Create a version object	my $v = Dpkg::Version->new("1.2.3-1")	Parse a version string and return a new object
Compare two versions	$v1 $v2 or version_compare($a, $b)	Returns -1, 0, 1 for earlier, equal, later
Check if version is valid	$v->is_valid() or version_check($version)	Returns true if the version string is syntactically correct
Extract epoch	$v->epoch()	Returns the epoch part of the version
Extract upstream version	$v->version()	Returns the upstream version part
Extract revision	$v->revision()	Returns the Debian revision part
Test if native	$v->is_native()	Returns true if no revision is present
String representation	"$v" or $v->as_string()	Convert version to a string (optionally omit epoch/revision)

📖 DESCRIPTION

The Dpkg::Version module provides pure-Perl routines to compare dpkg-style version numbers (as used in Debian packages) and also an object oriented interface overriding Perl operators to do the right thing when you compare Dpkg::Version objects between them.

🔧 METHODS

📦 $v = Dpkg::Version->new($version, %opts)

Create a new Dpkg::Version object corresponding to the version indicated in the string (scalar) $version. By default it accepts any string and consider it as a valid version. If you pass the option check => 1, it will return undef if the version is invalid (see version_check for details).

You can always call $v->is_valid() later on to verify that the version is valid.

🔍 Boolean evaluation

When the Dpkg::Version object is used in a boolean evaluation (for example in if ($v) or $v ? "$v" : 'default') it returns true if the version stored is valid ($v->is_valid()) and false otherwise.

Notice: Between dpkg 1.15.7.2 and 1.19.1 this overload used to return $v->as_string() if $v->is_valid(), a breaking change in behavior that caused "0" versions to be evaluated as false. To catch any possibly intended code that relied on those semantics, this overload will emit a warning with category "Dpkg::Version::semantic_change::overload::bool" until dpkg 1.20.x. Once fixed, or for already valid code the warning can be quiesced with

no if $Dpkg::Version::VERSION ge '1.02',
    warnings => qw(Dpkg::Version::semantic_change::overload::bool);

added after the use Dpkg::Version.

✅ $v->is_valid()

Returns true if the version is valid, false otherwise.

📐 $v->epoch(), $v->version(), $v->revision()

Returns the corresponding part of the full version string.

🏠 $v->is_native()

Returns true if the version is native, false if it has a revision.

⚖️ $v1 <=> $v2, $v1 < $v2, $v1 <= $v2, $v1 > $v2, $v1 >= $v2

Numerical comparison of various version numbers. One of the two operands needs to be a Dpkg::Version, the other one can be anything provided that its string representation is a version number.

📄 "$v", $v->as_string(), $v->as_string(%options)

Accepts an optional option hash reference, affecting the string conversion.

Options:

• omit_epoch (defaults to 0) — Omit the epoch, if present, in the output string.
• omit_revision (defaults to 0) — Omit the revision, if present, in the output string.

Returns the string representation of the version number.

🔬 FUNCTIONS

All the functions are exported by default.

• version_compare($a, $b) — Returns -1 if $a is earlier than $b, 0 if they are equal and 1 if $a is later than $b. If $a or $b are not valid version numbers, it dies with an error.
• version_compare_relation($a, $rel, $b) — Returns the result (0 or 1) of the given comparison operation. This function is implemented on top of version_compare(). Allowed values for $rel are the exported constants REL_GT, REL_GE, REL_EQ, REL_LE, REL_LT. Use version_normalize_relation() if you have an input string containing the operator.
• $rel = version_normalize_relation($rel_string) — Returns the normalized constant of the relation $rel (a value among REL_GT, REL_GE, REL_EQ, REL_LE and REL_LT). Supported relations names in input are: "gt", "ge", "eq", "le", "lt", ">>", ">=", "=", "<=", "<<". ">" and "<" are also supported but should not be used as they are obsolete aliases of ">=" and "<=".
• version_compare_string($a, $b) — String comparison function used for comparing non-numerical parts of version numbers. Returns -1 if $a is earlier than $b, 0 if they are equal and 1 if $a is later than $b. The "~" character always sorts lower than anything else. Digits sort lower than non-digits. Among remaining characters alphabetic characters (A-Z, a-z) sort lower than the other ones. Within each range, the ASCII decimal value of the character is used to sort between characters.
• version_compare_part($a, $b) — Compare two corresponding sub-parts of a version number (either upstream version or debian revision). Each parameter is split by version_split_digits() and resulting items are compared together. As soon as a difference happens, it returns -1 if $a is earlier than $b, 0 if they are equal and 1 if $a is later than $b.
• @items = version_split_digits($version) — Splits a string in items that are each entirely composed either of digits or of non-digits. For instance for "1.024~beta1+svn234" it would return ("1", ".", "024", "~beta", "1", "+svn", "234").
• ($ok, $msg) = version_check($version) or $ok = version_check($version) — Checks the validity of $version as a version number. Returns 1 in $ok if the version is valid, 0 otherwise. In the latter case, $msg contains a description of the problem with the $version scalar.

📜 CHANGES

➡️ Version 1.03 (dpkg 1.20.0)

Remove deprecation warning from semantic change in 1.02.

➡️ Version 1.02 (dpkg 1.19.1)

Semantic change: bool evaluation semantics restored to their original behavior.

➡️ Version 1.01 (dpkg 1.17.0)

New argument: Accept an options argument in $v->as_string().

New method: $v->is_native().

➡️ Version 1.00 (dpkg 1.15.6)

Mark the module as public.

1.21.1 2025-09-09 Dpkg::Version(3perl)

📛 NAME 🚀 Quick Reference 📖 DESCRIPTION 🔧 METHODS 🔬 FUNCTIONS 📜 CHANGES