Name

strverscmp — compare two version strings

Synopsis

#define _GNU_SOURCE          /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
#include <string.h>
int strverscmp( const char *s1,
  const char *s2);
 

DESCRIPTION

Often one has files jan1, jan2, ..., jan9, jan10, ... and it feels wrong when ls(1) orders them jan1, jan10, ..., jan2, ..., jan9. In order to rectify this, GNU introduced the −v option to ls(1), which is implemented using versionsort(3), which again uses strverscmp().

Thus, the task of strverscmp() is to compare two strings and find the "right" order, while strcmp(3) finds only the lexicographic order. This function does not use the locale category LC_COLLATE, so is meant mostly for situations where the strings are expected to be in ASCII.

What this function does is the following. If both strings are equal, return 0. Otherwise find the position between two bytes with the property that before it both strings are equal, while directly after it there is a difference. Find the largest consecutive digit strings containing (or starting at, or ending at) this position. If one or both of these is empty, then return what strcmp(3) would have returned (numerical ordering of byte values). Otherwise, compare both digit strings numerically, where digit strings with one or more leading zeros are interpreted as if they have a decimal point in front (so that in particular digit strings with more leading zeros come before digit strings with fewer leading zeros). Thus, the ordering is 000, 00, 01, 010, 09, 0, 1, 9, 10.

RETURN VALUE

The strverscmp() function returns an integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero if s1 is found, respectively, to be earlier than, equal to, or later than s2.

CONFORMING TO

This function is a GNU extension.

SEE ALSO

rename(1), strcasecmp(3), strcmp(3), strcoll(3)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.52 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man−pages/.


  Copyright (C) 2001 Andries Brouwer <aebcwi.nl>

%%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
professionally.

Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
%%%LICENSE_END