Gentoo's Ingenious Solution to Perl Versioning Chaos
2025-07-21
Gentoo's Perl package versions don't directly match upstream versions due to Perl's inconsistent versioning schemes. Upstream uses two incompatible methods: treating versions as floating points (making 1.1 and 1.10 equal) and using 'v' prefixes or multiple dots. Gentoo elegantly solves this with the `Gentoo::PerlMod::Version` module, which translates upstream versions into a consistent scheme, preserving sorting order and avoiding conflicts. The module converts floating-point versions into a 'v'-like format before comparison, ensuring compatibility while preventing version collisions and maintaining correspondence with upstream.
Read more
Development
Versioning