Rust library: version-compare

Rust library to easily compare version numbers with no specific format, and test against various comparison operators.

Comparing version numbers is hard, especially with weird version number formats.

This library helps you to easily compare any kind of version number with no specific format using a best-effort approach. Two version numbers can be compared to each other to get a comparison operator (<, ==, >), or test them against a comparison operator.

Along with version comparison, the library provides various other tools for working with version numbers.

Inspired by PHPs version_compare().

Note: Still a work in progress. Configurability is currently very limited. Things will change.

Formats

Version numbers that would parse successfully include:
1, 3.10.4.1, 1.2.alpha, 1.2.dev.4, , . -32 . 1, MyApp 3.2.0 / build 0932 ...

See a list of how version numbers compare here.

Example

This library is very easy to use. Here's a basic usage example:

Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
version-compare = "0.2"

example.rs:

use version_compare::{compare, compare_to, Cmp, Version};

fn main() {
    let a = "1.2";
    let b = "1.5.1";

    // The following comparison operators are used:
    // - Cmp::Eq -> Equal
    // - Cmp::Ne -> Not equal
    // - Cmp::Lt -> Less than
    // - Cmp::Le -> Less than or equal
    // - Cmp::Ge -> Greater than or equal
    // - Cmp::Gt -> Greater than

    // Easily compare version strings
    assert_eq!(compare(a, b), Ok(Cmp::Lt));
    assert_eq!(compare_to(a, b, Cmp::Le), Ok(true));
    assert_eq!(compare_to(a, b, Cmp::Gt), Ok(false));

    // Parse and wrap version strings as a Version
    let a = Version::from(a).unwrap();
    let b = Version::from(b).unwrap();

    // The Version can easily be compared with
    assert_eq!(a < b, true);
    assert_eq!(a <= b, true);
    assert_eq!(a > b, false);
    assert_eq!(a != b, true);
    assert_eq!(a.compare(&b), Cmp::Lt);
    assert_eq!(a.compare_to(&b, Cmp::Lt), true);

    // Or match the comparison operators
    match a.compare(b) {
        Cmp::Lt => println!("Version a is less than b"),
        Cmp::Eq => println!("Version a is equal to b"),
        Cmp::Gt => println!("Version a is greater than b"),
        _ => unreachable!(),
    }
}

See the examples directory for more.

Features

• Compare version numbers, get: <, ==, >
• Compare against a comparison operator (<, <=, ==, !=, >=, >)
• Parse complex and unspecified formats
• Static, standalone methods to easily compare version strings in a single line of code

Future ideas

• Version ranges
• Support for npm-style operators (e.g. ^1.0 or ~1.0)
• Manifest: extend Manifest for to support a wide set of constraints
• Building blocks for building your own specific version number parser
• Batch comparisons

Semver

Version numbers using the semver format are compared correctly with no additional configuration.

If your version number strings follow this exact format you may be better off using the semver crate for more format specific features.

If that isn't certain however, version-compare makes comparing a breeze.

Builds

This library is automatically build and tested every day and for each commit using CI services.

See the current status here: https://gitlab.com/timvisee/version-compare/-/pipelines

License

This project is released under the MIT license. Check out the LICENSE file for more information.