Museum

Home

Lab Overview

Retrotechnology Articles

⇒ Online Manual

Media Vault

Software Library

Restoration Projects

Artifacts Sought

compver(4)

NAME

compver − compatible versions file

DESCRIPTION

compver is an ASCII file used to specify previous versions of the associated package which are upward compatible.  It is created by a package developer. 

Each line of the file specifies a previous version of the associated package with which the current version is backward compatible. 

Since some packages may require installation of a specific version of another software package, compatibility information is extremely crucial.  Consider, for example, a package called "A" which requires version "1.0" of application "B" as a prerequisite for installation.  If the customer installing "A" has a newer version of "B" (version 1.3), the compver file for "B" must indicate that "1.3" is compatible with version "1.0" in order for the customer to install package "A". 

EXAMPLES

A sample compver file is shown below. 

Version 1.3
Version 1.0

NOTES

The comparison of the version string disregards white space and tabs.  It is performed on a word-by-word basis.  Thus "Version 1.3" and "Version 1.3" would be considered the same. 

SunOS 5.5/SPARC  —  Last change: 3 Jul 1990

Typewritten Software • bear@typewritten.org • Edmonds, WA 98026