Re: Dev version numbers, warnings, XS and MakeMaker dont play nicely together.

On Sun, January 6, 2008 4:54 pm, demerphq wrote:
> So we are told the way to mark a module as development is to use an
> underbar in the version number:
>
> $VERSION= "1.23_01";
>
>
> but this will produce warnings if you assert a required version number, as
> the version isn't numeric.
>
> So the standard response is to do
>
> $VERSION= eval $VERSION;
>
> on the next line. This means that MakeMaker sees "1.23_01" but Perl
> internal code for doing version checks sees "1.2301". This is all fine and
> dandy with pure perl modules.
>
> BUT, if the module is "bog standard" and uses XS this is a recipe for
> a fatal error. XS_BOOT_VERSIONCHECK will compare "1.23_01" to "1.2301" and
> decide that they are different versions and die.

See perlmodstyle:
> If you want to release a 'beta' or 'alpha' version of a module but
> don't want CPAN.pm to list it as most recent use an '_' after the
> regular version number followed by at least 2 digits, eg. 1.20_01. If
> you do this, the following idiom is recommended:
>
>   $VERSION = "1.12_01";
>   $XS_VERSION = $VERSION; # only needed if you have XS code
>   $VERSION = eval $VERSION;