Debian package version

[Tom H]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 8:20 AM, Sam Giraffe <sam at giraffetech.biz> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 7:44 PM, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 3:50 AM, Sam Giraffe <sam at giraffetech.biz> wrote:
>>>
>>> How does apt-get understand if a package version is newer than another one?
>>>
>>> In case of simple versioning of packages such as 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, I
>>> imagine it does a comparison between the numbers?
>>>
>>> My problem is that my package is versioned as such:
>>>
>>> 201510162108+0a8974b-HEAD
>>> 20151029T114141+259421f+HEAD
>>>
>>> And apt-get install <package> is telling me that the 1016 package is
>>> newer than the 1029 package which is not true.
>>>
>>> So when I run apt-get install I get this message:
>>>
>>> mypackage:amd64 201510162108+0a8974b-HEAD newer than version in archive
>>>
>>> This is not true, since the one in the archive is from Oct 29.
>>>
>>> Will I have to change my package versioning for apt-get to understand
>>> the package versions?
>>
>> 201510162108 > 20151029
>
> Yes, in terms of absolute numbers it is larger, but it's a relative
> number which I guess is what I was hoping apt would understand.
>
> Since 2015-10-16 21:08 is earlier than 2015-10-29 11:41:41
>
> I think the 'T' in the 2015-10-29 might be throwing apt off, maybe I
> need to revisit how the package versions are being assigned, and find
> way that works when the package versions are based on time.

Please bottom-post.

Yes, without the T, so if you use 201510291141 rather than
20151029T114141, 201510291141 > 201510162108.