NAME

Meta::Development::Version - handle a version number in development.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Mark Veltzer; All rights reserved.

LICENSE

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.

DETAILS

        MANIFEST: Version.pm
        PROJECT: meta
        VERSION: 0.12

SYNOPSIS

        package foo;
        use Meta::Development::Version qw();
        my($object)=Meta::Development::Version->new();
        my($result)=$object->method();

DESCRIPTION

This module assumes that when you assign a version number (to a file, a package etc...) you're not doing it for commercial reasons but rather for technical reasons. In open/free source this is indeed the case. If that is the case then you can deduce various information for different version number. This module is here to help you with doing that.

The basic assumption is that a version number for a module/a piecew of software etc... is made up of several components: 0. The major number. 1. The minor number. 2. The patch level. Two packages carrying the same version except patch level are compatible both ways (anything you can do with the one you can do with the other). The patch level is assumed to be there for fixing bugs and thats it. Two packages carrying the same major number are expected to be backward compatible (meaning that you can replace the older with the newer but the inverse is not neccessarily true). Two packages carrying different major numbers are assumed to be incompatible in every way (the package is still hopefully serving the same general pupose but in a totaly different way).

This module can read version numbers of different objects: perl modules, dlls, rpms, tar.gz source files etc... It can then answer questions like: Are these two compatible ?

When using this package one must keep in mind that the conventions mentioned earlier are the common ones used in the free/open source community. That does not mean that every package out there keeps these rules and in many case even package maintainers which mean to abide by the rules release a new version of a product with only a minor bump while a major bump would have been more appropriate (they do not notice that they are breaking compatibility).

Also one must keep in mind that compatiblity is not just one thing. There is source compatibility and target compatibility. Source compatibility means that using the new package does not cause the code to stop compiling. Target compatibility means that using the new package does not cause the binary to stop running. These are totaly different things which do not follow one from the other in any direction.

Keeping that in mind I hope you like the module...:)

FUNCTIONS

        BEGIN()
        get_rep_module($)
        get_rep_dll($)
        get_rep_rpm($)
        is_compatible($$)
        is_incompatible($$)
        next_major($$)
        next_minor($$)
        next_patch($$)
        TEST($)

FUNCTION DOCUMENTATION

BEGIN()

This block takes care of setting accessors for the following attributes: major, minor, patch.

get_rep_module($)

This method will return a string which can be used as a perl module version.

get_rep_dll($)

This method will return a string which can be used as a UNIX shared library version.

get_rep_rpm($)

This method will return a string which can be used as an RPM version number.

is_compatible($$)

This method receives a two version object and returns true iff the first one is compatible with the second one.

is_incompatible($$)

This method returns the exact opposite of the is_compatible method.

next_major($)

This method will increase the major number of the version.

next_minor($)

This method will increase the minor number of the version.

next_patch($)

This method will advance the version to a version which is just a patch level above the current.

TEST($)

Test suite for this model.

SUPER CLASSES

None.

BUGS

None.

AUTHOR

        Name: Mark Veltzer
        Email: mailto:veltzer@cpan.org
        WWW: http://www.veltzer.org
        CPAN id: VELTZER

HISTORY

        0.00 MV more database issues
        0.01 MV md5 project
        0.02 MV database
        0.03 MV perl module versions in files
        0.04 MV movies and small fixes
        0.05 MV thumbnail project basics
        0.06 MV thumbnail user interface
        0.07 MV more thumbnail issues
        0.08 MV website construction
        0.09 MV web site development
        0.10 MV web site automation
        0.11 MV SEE ALSO section fix
        0.12 MV md5 issues

SEE ALSO

Meta::Class::MethodMaker(3), strict(3)

TODO

-add methods like: parse_rpm, parse_dll, parse_targz, parse_any etc...

cpanm Meta::Init

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Meta::Init