strverscmp(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ATTRIBUTES | STANDARDS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

strverscmp(3)            Library Functions Manual           strverscmp(3)

NAME         top

       strverscmp - compare two version strings

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #define _GNU_SOURCE         /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <string.h>

       int strverscmp(const char *s1, const char *s2);

DESCRIPTION         top

       For a dataset like jan1, jan2, ..., jan9, jan10, ...  sorting it
       lexicographically yields jan1, jan10, ..., jan2, ..., jan9.  The
       task of strverscmp() is to compare two strings yielding the former
       order, while strcmp(3) finds only the lexicographic order.  This
       function does not use the locale category LC_COLLATE, so is meant
       mostly for situations where the strings are expected to be in
       ASCII.  This is different from the ordering produced by sort(1)
       -V.

       What this function does is the following.  If both strings are
       equal, return 0.  Otherwise, find the position between two bytes
       with the property that before it both strings are equal, while
       directly after it there is a difference.  Find the largest
       consecutive digit strings containing (or starting at, or ending
       at) this position.  If one or both of these is empty, then return
       what strcmp(3) would have returned (numerical ordering of byte
       values).  Otherwise, compare both digit strings numerically, where
       digit strings with one or more leading zeros are interpreted as if
       they have a decimal point in front (so that in particular digit
       strings with more leading zeros come before digit strings with
       fewer leading zeros).  Thus, the ordering is 000, 00, 01, 010, 09,
       0, 1, 9, 10.

RETURN VALUE         top

       The strverscmp() function returns an integer less than, equal to,
       or greater than zero if s1 is found, respectively, to be earlier
       than, equal to, or later than s2.

ATTRIBUTES         top

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
       attributes(7).
       ┌──────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
       │ Interface                            Attribute     Value   │
       ├──────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │ strverscmp()                         │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       └──────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

STANDARDS         top

       GNU.

EXAMPLES         top

       The program below can be used to demonstrate the behavior of
       strverscmp().  It uses strverscmp() to compare the two strings
       given as its command-line arguments.  An example of its use is the
       following:

           $ ./a.out jan1 jan10
           jan1 < jan10

   Program source

       #define _GNU_SOURCE
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <string.h>

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
           int res;

           if (argc != 3) {
               fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <string1> <string2>\n", argv[0]);
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           res = strverscmp(argv[1], argv[2]);

           printf("%s %s %s\n", argv[1],
                  (res < 0) ? "<" : (res == 0) ? "==" : ">", argv[2]);

           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO         top

       rename(1), strcasecmp(3), strcmp(3), strcoll(3)

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.10            2024-12-16                  strverscmp(3)

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