Re: Epoch inflation

[Edward Avis <epa98 doc ic ac uk>]

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>From: Kenneth Porter <shiva@well.com>

>Another solution I've seen is to move the prerelease increment into a
>fraction of package release 0:
>
>0.9.6-0.1

In fact you can generalize this and have 'preX' version number
components as 0.x.  For example

1.2pre5 -> 1.2.0.5
1pre2   -> 0.1

Then the final release becomes .1, for example

1.2 -> 1.2.1
1   -> 1.1

This would mean that non-pre releases would end up as 1, 2.1, 2.2.16.1
and so on.  Notice that this '0.x for pre, 1 for final' is already the
convention for software before version 1 is released.  This is just a
more general version.

However, I think it would be easier to add support for 'pre' numbers
into version number comparison routines than to persuade the entire
world to switch away from version numbers starting at zero and start at
one (with zero for 'pre') instead.

- -- 
Ed Avis <epa98@doc.ic.ac.uk>
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