Re: New CLI syntax for package version

[Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>]

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> In <http://bugs.gnu.org/19219>, we came to the conclusion that we need a
> new syntax to denote a specific package version on the command line.
>
> The current syntax is described in the manual (info "(guix) Invoking
> guix package").  Basically, ‘guile-1.8’ refers to version 1.8.x of
> Guile; however, this syntax has proved to be ambiguous for packages
> whose name contains digits.

Should we also take some time to reconsider how we name unreleased
versions like arbitrary git commits?

So far we have been picking the latest release version (or “0.0.0” if
there hasn’t been any release) followed by “.” and either a date or a
guix-internal revision number, then again a “.” followed by part of the
commit hash.

I’m afraid that we might accidentally introduce conflicts with future
release versions, e.g. when the latest release only uses two digits
(e.g. “0.1”) and we add a revision or a date (e.g. “0.1.1” or
“0.1.20160112”) and the next release and the next official release
switches to three digits (e.g. “0.1.1”).

Would it make sense to separate our version identifier from the actual
release version with a different character than “.”?  Or should this be
discussed elsewhere as it hasn’t anything to do with how we specify
versions on the command line?

~~ Ricardo