On 2009-04-30 14:32-0500 Maurice LeBrun wrote: > On Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 19:48:40 (+0100) Andrew Ross writes: > > I quite like your idea of something like 5.9.2+ though as it is simple. > > Just wanted to point out a potential downside.. if anyone does version number > parsing & expects numeric fields throughout, their code will likely barf on > this. > > What I do for a different project is call the non-released code "master" (or > "head") and then the version number parser checks for that special string > first before assuming it's a released version & doing the numeric parsing.
Well, non-numeric version strings have been used for actual releases in the past, and most likely in the future as well. For example, following up on a previous sub-thread of this thread, I assume we are going to make a release of 5.10.0-RC-1 a week or so before 5.10.0 comes out. So I think those who parse PLplot version strings assuming they are strictly numeric are going to run into trouble regardless. That said, if you prefer something like "svn_trunk" as the complete version string between releases rather than, say, "5.9.3+" after this weekend's release, that would be OK with me. I still lean toward "5.9.3+", however, because that "+" gives a good clue that it is not a definite release and also describes our intentions (leading toward the next release) without pinning us down as to whether the next one will be 5.9.4 or 5.10.0-RC-1. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Register Now & Save for Velocity, the Web Performance & Operations Conference from O'Reilly Media. Velocity features a full day of expert-led, hands-on workshops and two days of sessions from industry leaders in dedicated Performance & Operations tracks. Use code vel09scf and Save an extra 15% before 5/3. http://p.sf.net/sfu/velocityconf _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
