[Yum] What is the yum comparison rule?

[seth vidal]

On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 21:01 -0800, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 21:59 +0100, Jos Vos wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 15, 2007 at 12:40:46PM -0800, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
> > 
> > > I build some of my own package, which I qualify with the distribution
> > > string ".jon".  For example, I have built 
> > > 	k3b-debuginfo-0.12.17-1.jon
> > > 	k3b-extras-nonfree-0.12.17-3.jon
> > > Yum does not want to update 
> > > 	k3b-debuginfo-0.12.17-1.jon
> > > with
> > > 	k3b-debuginfo-0.12.17-1.fc6
> > > which is available on one of the repositories I access.
> > > But does want to update
> > > 	k3b-extras-nonfree-0.12.17-3.jon
> > > with
> > > 	k3b-extras-nonfree-0.12.17-3.lvn6
> > > 
> > > What's the best way to prevent this.  Should I use a distribution string
> > > of ".zzzz"?  Or is there something more reasonable looking?  An epoch?
> > 
> > Adding an epoch will break comparisons till eternity, so you want
> > to avoid using that for your own packages.
> > 
> > If you want to adapt existing RPMs, better *add* a suffix to the
> > existing release (3.fc6.jon) i.s.o. replacing the last token.
> > 
> > This may also fail at the moment the distributor adds a token to
> > the release, but that's why life is not said to be easy... ;-).
> 
> Ah well.  I had hoped to do this the easy way by adding the line
> 	%dist .jon
> to my .rpmmacros file, which would then be expanded by a like like
> 	Release:        3%{?dist}
> which appears in most spec files.
> 
> BTW: What *is* the yum comparison rule between packages?
> 

it uses rpmvercmp which is a type of specialized sort function.

It's not quite an alphabetical/numeric sort but it's similar-ish.

-sv