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version::Internals(3) User Contributed Perl Documentationversion::Internals(3)

NAME
       version::Internals - Perl extension for Version Objects
DESCRIPTION
       Overloaded version objects for all modern versions of Perl.  This
       documents the internal data representation and underlying code for
       version.pm.  See version.pod for daily usage.  This document is only
       useful for users interested in the gory details.
WHAT IS A VERSION?
       For the purposes of this module, a version "number" is a sequence of
       positive integer values separated by one or more decimal points and
       optionally a single underscore.  This corresponds to what Perl itself
       uses for a version, as well as extending the "version as number" that
       is discussed in the various editions of the Camel book.
       There are actually two distinct kinds of version objects:
       Decimal Versions
           Any version which "looks like a number", see "Decimal Versions".
           This also includes versions with a single decimal point and a
           single embedded underscore, see "Alpha Versions", even though these
           must be quoted to preserve the underscore formatting.
       Dotted-Decimal Versions
           Also referred to as "Dotted-Integer", these contains more than one
           decimal point and may have an optional embedded underscore, see
           Dotted-Decimal Versions.  This is what is commonly used in most
           open source software as the "external" version (the one used as
           part of the tag or tarfile name).  A leading 'v' character is now
           required and will warn if it missing.
       Both of these methods will produce similar version objects, in that the
       default stringification will yield the version "Normal Form" only if
       required:
         $v  = version->new(1.002);     # 1.002, but compares like 1.2.0
         $v  = version->new(1.002003);  # 1.002003
         $v2 = version->new("v1.2.3");  # v1.2.3
       In specific, version numbers initialized as "Decimal Versions" will
       stringify as they were originally created (i.e. the same string that
       was passed to "new()".  Version numbers initialized as "Dotted-Decimal
       Versions" will be stringified as "Normal Form".
   Decimal Versions
       These correspond to historical versions of Perl itself prior to 5.6.0,
       as well as all other modules which follow the Camel rules for the
       $VERSION scalar.  A Decimal version is initialized with what looks like
       a floating point number.  Leading zeros are significant and trailing
       zeros are implied so that a minimum of three places is maintained
       between subversions.  What this means is that any subversion (digits to
       the right of the decimal place) that contains less than three digits
       will have trailing zeros added to make up the difference, but only for
       purposes of comparison with other version objects.  For example:
                                          # Prints     Equivalent to
         $v = version->new(      1.2);    # 1.2        v1.200.0
         $v = version->new(     1.02);    # 1.02       v1.20.0
         $v = version->new(    1.002);    # 1.002      v1.2.0
         $v = version->new(   1.0023);    # 1.0023     v1.2.300
         $v = version->new(  1.00203);    # 1.00203    v1.2.30
         $v = version->new( 1.002003);    # 1.002003   v1.2.3
       All of the preceding examples are true whether or not the input value
       is quoted.  The important feature is that the input value contains only
       a single decimal.  See also "Alpha Versions".
       IMPORTANT NOTE: As shown above, if your Decimal version contains more
       than 3 significant digits after the decimal place, it will be split on
       each multiple of 3, so 1.0003 is equivalent to v1.0.300, due to the
       need to remain compatible with Perl's own 5.005_03 == 5.5.30
       interpretation.  Any trailing zeros are ignored for mathematical
       comparison purposes.
   Dotted-Decimal Versions
       These are the newest form of versions, and correspond to Perl's own
       version style beginning with 5.6.0.  Starting with Perl 5.10.0, and
       most likely Perl 6, this is likely to be the preferred form.  This
       method normally requires that the input parameter be quoted, although
       Perl's after 5.8.1 can use v-strings as a special form of quoting, but
       this is highly discouraged.
       Unlike "Decimal Versions", Dotted-Decimal Versions have more than a
       single decimal point, e.g.:
                                          # Prints
         $v = version->new( "v1.200");    # v1.200.0
         $v = version->new("v1.20.0");    # v1.20.0
         $v = qv("v1.2.3");               # v1.2.3
         $v = qv("1.2.3");                # v1.2.3
         $v = qv("1.20");                 # v1.20.0
       In general, Dotted-Decimal Versions permit the greatest amount of
       freedom to specify a version, whereas Decimal Versions enforce a
       certain uniformity.
       Just like "Decimal Versions", Dotted-Decimal Versions can be used as
       "Alpha Versions".
   Alpha Versions
       For module authors using CPAN, the convention has been to note unstable
       releases with an underscore in the version string. (See CPAN.)
       version.pm follows this convention and alpha releases will test as
       being newer than the more recent stable release, and less than the next
       stable release.  Only the last element may be separated by an
       underscore:
         # Declaring
         use version 0.77; our $VERSION = version->declare("v1.2_3");
         # Parsing
         $v1 = version->parse("v1.2_3");
         $v1 = version->parse("1.002_003");
       Note that you must quote the version when writing an alpha Decimal
       version.  The stringified form of Decimal versions will always be the
       same string that was used to initialize the version object.
   Regular Expressions for Version Parsing
       A formalized definition of the legal forms for version strings is
       included in the "version::regex" class.  Primitives are included for
       common elements, although they are scoped to the file so they are
       useful for reference purposes only.  There are two publicly accessible
       scalars that can be used in other code (not exported):
       $version::LAX
           This regexp covers all of the legal forms allowed under the current
           version string parser.  This is not to say that all of these forms
           are recommended, and some of them can only be used when quoted.
           For dotted decimals:
               v1.2
               1.2345.6
               v1.23_4
           The leading 'v' is optional if two or more decimals appear.  If
           only a single decimal is included, then the leading 'v' is required
           to trigger the dotted-decimal parsing.  A leading zero is
           permitted, though not recommended except when quoted, because of
           the risk that Perl will treat the number as octal.  A trailing
           underscore plus one or more digits denotes an alpha or development
           release (and must be quoted to be parsed properly).
           For decimal versions:
               1
               1.2345
               1.2345_01
           an integer portion, an optional decimal point, and optionally one
           or more digits to the right of the decimal are all required.  A
           trailing underscore is permitted and a leading zero is permitted.
           Just like the lax dotted-decimal version, quoting the values is
           required for alpha/development forms to be parsed correctly.
       $version::STRICT
           This regexp covers a much more limited set of formats and
           constitutes the best practices for initializing version objects.
           Whether you choose to employ decimal or dotted-decimal for is a
           personal preference however.
           v1.234.5
               For dotted-decimal versions, a leading 'v' is required, with
               three or more sub-versions of no more than three digits.  A
               leading 0 (zero) before the first sub-version (in the above
               example, '1') is also prohibited.
           2.3456
               For decimal versions, an integer portion (no leading 0), a
               decimal point, and one or more digits to the right of the
               decimal are all required.
       Both of the provided scalars are already compiled as regular
       expressions and do not contain either anchors or implicit groupings, so
       they can be included in your own regular expressions freely.  For
       example, consider the following code:
               ($pkg, $ver) =~ /
                       ^[ \t]*
                       use [ \t]+($PKGNAME)
                       (?:[ \t]+($version::STRICT))?
                       [ \t]*;
               /x;
       This would match a line of the form:
               use Foo::Bar::Baz v1.2.3;       # legal only in Perl 5.8.1+
       where $PKGNAME is another regular expression that defines the legal
       forms for package names.
IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS
   Equivalence between Decimal and Dotted-Decimal Versions
       When Perl 5.6.0 was released, the decision was made to provide a
       transformation between the old-style decimal versions and new-style
       dotted-decimal versions:
         5.6.0    == 5.006000
         5.005_04 == 5.5.40
       The floating point number is taken and split first on the single
       decimal place, then each group of three digits to the right of the
       decimal makes up the next digit, and so on until the number of
       significant digits is exhausted, plus enough trailing zeros to reach
       the next multiple of three.
       This was the method that version.pm adopted as well.  Some examples may
       be helpful:
                                   equivalent
         decimal    zero-padded    dotted-decimal
         -------    -----------    --------------
         1.2        1.200          v1.200.0
         1.02       1.020          v1.20.0
         1.002      1.002          v1.2.0
         1.0023     1.002300       v1.2.300
         1.00203    1.002030       v1.2.30
         1.002003   1.002003       v1.2.3
   Quoting Rules
       Because of the nature of the Perl parsing and tokenizing routines,
       certain initialization values must be quoted in order to correctly
       parse as the intended version, especially when using the "declare" or
       "qv()" methods.  While you do not have to quote decimal numbers when
       creating version objects, it is always safe to quote all initial values
       when using version.pm methods, as this will ensure that what you type
       is what is used.
       Additionally, if you quote your initializer, then the quoted value that
       goes in will be exactly what comes out when your $VERSION is printed
       (stringified).  If you do not quote your value, Perl's normal numeric
       handling comes into play and you may not get back what you were
       expecting.
       If you use a mathematic formula that resolves to a floating point
       number, you are dependent on Perl's conversion routines to yield the
       version you expect.  You are pretty safe by dividing by a power of 10,
       for example, but other operations are not likely to be what you intend.
       For example:
         $VERSION = version->new((qw$Revision: 1.4)[1]/10);
         print $VERSION;          # yields 0.14
         $V2 = version->new(100/9); # Integer overflow in decimal number
         print $V2;               # yields something like 11.111.111.100
       Perl 5.8.1 and beyond are able to automatically quote v-strings but
       that is not possible in earlier versions of Perl.  In other words:
         $version = version->new("v2.5.4");  # legal in all versions of Perl
         $newvers = version->new(v2.5.4);    # legal only in Perl >= 5.8.1
   What about v-strings?
       There are two ways to enter v-strings: a bare number with two or more
       decimal points, or a bare number with one or more decimal points and a
       leading 'v' character (also bare).  For example:
         $vs1 = 1.2.3; # encoded as \1\2\3
         $vs2 = v1.2;  # encoded as \1\2
       However, the use of bare v-strings to initialize version objects is
       strongly discouraged in all circumstances.  Also, bare v-strings are
       not completely supported in any version of Perl prior to 5.8.1.
       If you insist on using bare v-strings with Perl > 5.6.0, be aware of
       the following limitations:
       1) For Perl releases 5.6.0 through 5.8.0, the v-string code merely
       guesses, based on some characteristics of v-strings.  You must use a
       three part version, e.g. 1.2.3 or v1.2.3 in order for this heuristic to
       be successful.
       2) For Perl releases 5.8.1 and later, v-strings have changed in the
       Perl core to be magical, which means that the version.pm code can
       automatically determine whether the v-string encoding was used.
       3) In all cases, a version created using v-strings will have a
       stringified form that has a leading 'v' character, for the simple
       reason that sometimes it is impossible to tell whether one was present
       initially.
   Version Object Internals
       version.pm provides an overloaded version object that is designed to
       both encapsulate the author's intended $VERSION assignment as well as
       make it completely natural to use those objects as if they were numbers
       (e.g. for comparisons).  To do this, a version object contains both the
       original representation as typed by the author, as well as a parsed
       representation to ease comparisons.  Version objects employ overload
       methods to simplify code that needs to compare, print, etc the objects.
       The internal structure of version objects is a blessed hash with
       several components:
           bless( {
             'original' => 'v1.2.3_4',
             'alpha' => 1,
             'qv' => 1,
             'version' => [
               1,
               2,
               3,
               4
             ]
           }, 'version' );
       original
           A faithful representation of the value used to initialize this
           version object.  The only time this will not be precisely the same
           characters that exist in the source file is if a short dotted-
           decimal version like v1.2 was used (in which case it will contain
           'v1.2').  This form is STRONGLY discouraged, in that it will
           confuse you and your users.
       qv  A boolean that denotes whether this is a decimal or dotted-decimal
           version.  See "is_qv()" in version.
       alpha
           A boolean that denotes whether this is an alpha version.  NOTE:
           that the underscore can only appear in the last position.  See
           "is_alpha()" in version.
       version
           An array of non-negative integers that is used for comparison
           purposes with other version objects.
   Replacement UNIVERSAL::VERSION
       In addition to the version objects, this modules also replaces the core
       UNIVERSAL::VERSION function with one that uses version objects for its
       comparisons.  The return from this operator is always the stringified
       form as a simple scalar (i.e. not an object), but the warning message
       generated includes either the stringified form or the normal form,
       depending on how it was called.
       For example:
         package Foo;
         $VERSION = 1.2;
         package Bar;
         $VERSION = "v1.3.5"; # works with all Perl's (since it is quoted)
         package main;
         use version;
         print $Foo::VERSION; # prints 1.2
         print $Bar::VERSION; # prints 1.003005
         eval "use foo 10";
         print $@; # prints "foo version 10 required..."
         eval "use foo 1.3.5; # work in Perl 5.6.1 or better
         print $@; # prints "foo version 1.3.5 required..."
         eval "use bar 1.3.6";
         print $@; # prints "bar version 1.3.6 required..."
         eval "use bar 1.004"; # note Decimal version
         print $@; # prints "bar version 1.004 required..."
       IMPORTANT NOTE: This may mean that code which searches for a specific
       string (to determine whether a given module is available) may need to
       be changed.  It is always better to use the built-in comparison
       implicit in "use" or "require", rather than manually poking at
       "class->VERSION" and then doing a comparison yourself.
       The replacement UNIVERSAL::VERSION, when used as a function, like this:
         print $module->VERSION;
       will also exclusively return the stringified form.  See
       "Stringification" for more details.
USAGE DETAILS
   Using modules that use version.pm
       As much as possible, the version.pm module remains compatible with all
       current code.  However, if your module is using a module that has
       defined $VERSION using the version class, there are a couple of things
       to be aware of.  For purposes of discussion, we will assume that we
       have the following module installed:
         package Example;
         use version;  $VERSION = qv('1.2.2');
         ...module code here...
         1;
       Decimal versions always work
           Code of the form:
             use Example 1.002003;
           will always work correctly.  The "use" will perform an automatic
           $VERSION comparison using the floating point number given as the
           first term after the module name (e.g. above 1.002.003).  In this
           case, the installed module is too old for the requested line, so
           you would see an error like:
             Example version 1.002003 (v1.2.3) required--this is only version 1.002002 (v1.2.2)...
       Dotted-Decimal version work sometimes
           With Perl >= 5.6.2, you can also use a line like this:
             use Example 1.2.3;
           and it will again work (i.e. give the error message as above), even
           with releases of Perl which do not normally support v-strings (see
           "What about v-strings?" above).  This has to do with that fact that
           "use" only checks to see if the second term looks like a number and
           passes that to the replacement UNIVERSAL::VERSION.  This is not
           true in Perl 5.005_04, however, so you are strongly encouraged to
           always use a Decimal version in your code, even for those versions
           of Perl which support the Dotted-Decimal version.
   Object Methods
       new()
           Like many OO interfaces, the new() method is used to initialize
           version objects.  If two arguments are passed to "new()", the
           second one will be used as if it were prefixed with "v".  This is
           to support historical use of the "qw" operator with the CVS
           variable $Revision, which is automatically incremented by CVS every
           time the file is committed to the repository.
           In order to facilitate this feature, the following code can be
           employed:
             $VERSION = version->new(qw$Revision: 2.7 $);
           and the version object will be created as if the following code
           were used:
             $VERSION = version->new("v2.7");
           In other words, the version will be automatically parsed out of the
           string, and it will be quoted to preserve the meaning CVS normally
           carries for versions.  The CVS $Revision$ increments differently
           from Decimal versions (i.e. 1.10 follows 1.9), so it must be
           handled as if it were a Dotted-Decimal Version.
           A new version object can be created as a copy of an existing
           version object, either as a class method:
             $v1 = version->new(12.3);
             $v2 = version->new($v1);
           or as an object method:
             $v1 = version->new(12.3);
             $v2 = $v1->new(12.3);
           and in each case, $v1 and $v2 will be identical.  NOTE: if you
           create a new object using an existing object like this:
             $v2 = $v1->new();
           the new object will not be a clone of the existing object.  In the
           example case, $v2 will be an empty object of the same type as $v1.
       qv()
           An alternate way to create a new version object is through the
           exported qv() sub.  This is not strictly like other q? operators
           (like qq, qw), in that the only delimiters supported are
           parentheses (or spaces).  It is the best way to initialize a short
           version without triggering the floating point interpretation.  For
           example:
             $v1 = qv(1.2);         # v1.2.0
             $v2 = qv("1.2");       # also v1.2.0
           As you can see, either a bare number or a quoted string can usually
           be used interchangeably, except in the case of a trailing zero,
           which must be quoted to be converted properly.  For this reason, it
           is strongly recommended that all initializers to qv() be quoted
           strings instead of bare numbers.
           To prevent the "qv()" function from being exported to the caller's
           namespace, either use version with a null parameter:
             use version ();
           or just require version, like this:
             require version;
           Both methods will prevent the import() method from firing and
           exporting the "qv()" sub.
       For the subsequent examples, the following three objects will be used:
         $ver   = version->new("1.2.3.4"); # see "Quoting Rules"
         $alpha = version->new("1.2.3_4"); # see "Alpha Versions"
         $nver  = version->new(1.002);     # see "Decimal Versions"
       Normal Form
           For any version object which is initialized with multiple decimal
           places (either quoted or if possible v-string), or initialized
           using the qv() operator, the stringified representation is returned
           in a normalized or reduced form (no extraneous zeros), and with a
           leading 'v':
             print $ver->normal;         # prints as v1.2.3.4
             print $ver->stringify;      # ditto
             print $ver;                 # ditto
             print $nver->normal;        # prints as v1.2.0
             print $nver->stringify;     # prints as 1.002,
                                         # see "Stringification"
           In order to preserve the meaning of the processed version, the
           normalized representation will always contain at least three sub
           terms.  In other words, the following is guaranteed to always be
           true:
             my $newver = version->new($ver->stringify);
             if ($newver eq $ver ) # always true
               {...}
       Numification
           Although all mathematical operations on version objects are
           forbidden by default, it is possible to retrieve a number which
           corresponds to the version object through the use of the
           $obj->numify method.  For formatting purposes, when displaying a
           number which corresponds a version object, all sub versions are
           assumed to have three decimal places.  So for example:
             print $ver->numify;         # prints 1.002003004
             print $nver->numify;        # prints 1.002
           Unlike the stringification operator, there is never any need to
           append trailing zeros to preserve the correct version value.
       Stringification
           The default stringification for version objects returns exactly the
           same string as was used to create it, whether you used "new()" or
           "qv()", with one exception.  The sole exception is if the object
           was created using "qv()" and the initializer did not have two
           decimal places or a leading 'v' (both optional), then the
           stringified form will have a leading 'v' prepended, in order to
           support round-trip processing.
           For example:
             Initialized as          Stringifies to
             ==============          ==============
             version->new("1.2")       1.2
             version->new("v1.2")     v1.2
             qv("1.2.3")               1.2.3
             qv("v1.3.5")             v1.3.5
             qv("1.2")                v1.2   ### exceptional case
           See also UNIVERSAL::VERSION, as this also returns the stringified
           form when used as a class method.
           IMPORTANT NOTE: There is one exceptional cases shown in the above
           table where the "initializer" is not stringwise equivalent to the
           stringified representation.  If you use the "qv"() operator on a
           version without a leading 'v' and with only a single decimal place,
           the stringified output will have a leading 'v', to preserve the
           sense.  See the "qv()" operator for more details.
           IMPORTANT NOTE 2: Attempting to bypass the normal stringification
           rules by manually applying numify() and normal()  will sometimes
           yield surprising results:
             print version->new(version->new("v1.0")->numify)->normal; # v1.0.0
           The reason for this is that the numify() operator will turn "v1.0"
           into the equivalent string "1.000000".  Forcing the outer version
           object to normal() form will display the mathematically equivalent
           "v1.0.0".
           As the example in "new()" shows, you can always create a copy of an
           existing version object with the same value by the very compact:
             $v2 = $v1->new($v1);
           and be assured that both $v1 and $v2 will be completely equivalent,
           down to the same internal representation as well as
           stringification.
       Comparison operators
           Both "cmp" and "<=>" operators perform the same comparison between
           terms (upgrading to a version object automatically).  Perl
           automatically generates all of the other comparison operators based
           on those two.  In addition to the obvious equalities listed below,
           appending a single trailing 0 term does not change the value of a
           version for comparison purposes.  In other words "v1.2" and "1.2.0"
           will compare as identical.
           For example, the following relations hold:
             As Number        As String           Truth Value
             -------------    ----------------    -----------
             $ver >  1.0      $ver gt "1.0"       true
             $ver <  2.5      $ver lt             true
             $ver != 1.3      $ver ne "1.3"       true
             $ver == 1.2      $ver eq "1.2"       false
             $ver == 1.2.3.4  $ver eq "1.2.3.4"   see discussion below
           It is probably best to chose either the Decimal notation or the
           string notation and stick with it, to reduce confusion.  Perl6
           version objects may only support Decimal comparisons.  See also
           "Quoting Rules".
           WARNING: Comparing version with unequal numbers of decimal points
           (whether explicitly or implicitly initialized), may yield
           unexpected results at first glance.  For example, the following
           inequalities hold:
             version->new(0.96)     > version->new(0.95); # 0.960.0 > 0.950.0
             version->new("0.96.1") < version->new(0.95); # 0.096.1 < 0.950.0
           For this reason, it is best to use either exclusively "Decimal
           Versions" or "Dotted-Decimal Versions" with multiple decimal
           points.
       Logical Operators
           If you need to test whether a version object has been initialized,
           you can simply test it directly:
             $vobj = version->new($something);
             if ( $vobj )   # true only if $something was non-blank
           You can also test whether a version object is an alpha version, for
           example to prevent the use of some feature not present in the main
           release:
             $vobj = version->new("1.2_3"); # MUST QUOTE
             ...later...
             if ( $vobj->is_alpha )       # True
AUTHOR
       John Peacock <jpeacock AT cpan.org>
SEE ALSO
       perl.

perl v5.16.3                      2014-01-15             version::Internals(3)