Defining some official package naming standards

[Max Bowsher]

Dave Korn wrote:
> On 14 August 2006 09:58, Max Bowsher wrote:
> 
>> Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>> On Aug 12 23:13, Max Bowsher wrote:
>>>> The recent thread about remake suggests it would be a good idea to
>>>> define some actual official package naming rules: exactly what things
>>>> are considered valid for the name, version, and release fields in a
>>>> package. 
>>>>
>>>> I propose:
>>>>
>>>> A package NVR identifier is name-version-release - three fields
>>>> separated by '-' characters.
>>>>
>>>> The release field MUST NOT contain a '-' character.
>>>>
>>>> The version field MUST begin with a digit. Well-behaved parsers should
>>>> allow it to contain '-' characters, but package creators should try to
>>>> avoid this because it can lead to NVRs that look confusing.
>>>>
>>>> The name field may contain '-' characters, EXCEPT that it MUST NOT
>>>> contain a '-' character immediately followed by a digit.
>>> Weird, but I always thought that the above is already state of the art.
>> The above is a set of rules distilled from current practice, but I don't
>> think we've actually defined and documented this before.
>>
>> Max.
> 
>   Mustn't the release field begin with a digit too?

It's not necessary to require that to make NVR strings parseable, since 
the release is unambiguously delimited by the final '-' in the string.

Nevertheless, the release field certainly should begin with a digit, 
since it would be confusing otherwise.

>   So, as this stands, VER='3.80+dbg-0.61' would be valid?

Technically valid, but falling under the "you should try to avoid this" 
clause. Changing the '-' to a '_' is probably the best option.

Max.

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