That's fine. I (personally at least) am fine with things the way they are.
I was just hoping to be able to "dot the i's" by solving this one last
niggling point. If there simply isn't a solution, then that's the way it
is.
But, I do just want to point out one persistent misunderstanding that I
think you have.
I wasn't hoping yum would compare package names unison213 and unison227
and pick the later one.
Rather, I was hoping that since I'd asked to install "unison", and 2
packages both had virtual provides for "unison" with differing version
numbers, then yum would pick the package with the higher version number
for that virtual provide, solely based on the virtual provide version
values.
Please note that in the virtual provide for "unison", there are no funny
version numbers encoded into the package name part; both provides are just
"unison", with versions 2.13.xxxx and 2.27.xxxx.
I'd consider the current situation identical to there being two packages
named "foo" and "bar", each virtual providing "baz", one proving baz==1,
the other baz==2.