Bash. How compare two strings in "version" format

Question

Is there any way to compare such strings on bash:

2.4.5 and 2.8 and 2.4.5.1

etc

Answer 1

There probably is no universally correct way to achieve this. If you are trying to compare versions in the Debian package system try dpkg --compare-versions <first> <relation> <second>.

Answer 2

sort -n -t.   

is a good starting point.

Answer 3

You can recursively split on . and compare as shown in the following algorithm, taken from here. It returns 10 if the versions are the same, 11 if version 1 is greater than version 2 and 9 otherwise.

#!/bin/bash
do_version_check() {

   [ "$1" == "$2" ] && return 10

   ver1front=`echo $1 | cut -d "." -f -1`
   ver1back=`echo $1 | cut -d "." -f 2-`

   ver2front=`echo $2 | cut -d "." -f -1`
   ver2back=`echo $2 | cut -d "." -f 2-`

   if [ "$ver1front" != "$1" ] || [ "$ver2front" != "$2" ]; then
       [ "$ver1front" -gt "$ver2front" ] && return 11
       [ "$ver1front" -lt "$ver2front" ] && return 9

       [ "$ver1front" == "$1" ] || [ -z "$ver1back" ] && ver1back=0
       [ "$ver2front" == "$2" ] || [ -z "$ver2back" ] && ver2back=0
       do_version_check "$ver1back" "$ver2back"
       return $?
   else
           [ "$1" -gt "$2" ] && return 11 || return 9
   fi
}    

do_version_check "$1" "$2"

Source

Answer 4

If you have coreutils-7 (in Ubuntu Karmic but not Jaunty) then your sort command should have a -V option (version sort) which you could use to do the comparison:

verlte() {
    [  "$1" = "`echo -e "$1\n$2" | sort -V | head -n1`" ]
}

verlt() {
    [ "$1" = "$2" ] && return 1 || verlte $1 $2
}

verlte 2.5.7 2.5.6 && echo "yes" || echo "no" # no
verlt 2.4.10 2.4.9 && echo "yes" || echo "no" # no
verlt 2.4.8 2.4.10 && echo "yes" || echo "no" # yes
verlte 2.5.6 2.5.6 && echo "yes" || echo "no" # yes
verlt 2.5.6 2.5.6 && echo "yes" || echo "no" # no

Answer 5

Here is a pure Bash version that doesn't require any external utilities:

#!/bin/bash
vercomp () {
    if [[ $1 == $2 ]]
    then
        return 0
    fi
    local IFS=.
    local i ver1=($1) ver2=($2)
    # fill empty fields in ver1 with zeros
    for ((i=${#ver1[@]}; i<${#ver2[@]}; i++))
    do
        ver1[i]=0
    done
    for ((i=0; i<${#ver1[@]}; i++))
    do
        if [[ -z ${ver2[i]} ]]
        then
            # fill empty fields in ver2 with zeros
            ver2[i]=0
        fi
        if ((10#${ver1[i]} > 10#${ver2[i]}))
        then
            return 1
        fi
        if ((10#${ver1[i]} < 10#${ver2[i]}))
        then
            return 2
        fi
    done
    return 0
}

testvercomp () {
    vercomp $1 $2
    case $? in
        0) op='=';;
        1) op='>';;
        2) op='<';;
    esac
    if [[ $op != $3 ]]
    then
        echo "FAIL: Expected '$3', Actual '$op', Arg1 '$1', Arg2 '$2'"
    else
        echo "Pass: '$1 $op $2'"
    fi
}

# Run tests
# argument table format:
# testarg1   testarg2     expected_relationship
echo "The following tests should pass"
while read -r test
do
    testvercomp $test
done << EOF
1            1            =
2.1          2.2          <
3.0.4.10     3.0.4.2      >
4.08         4.08.01      <
3.2.1.9.8144 3.2          >
3.2          3.2.1.9.8144 <
1.2          2.1          <
2.1          1.2          >
5.6.7        5.6.7        =
1.01.1       1.1.1        =
1.1.1        1.01.1       =
1            1.0          =
1.0          1            =
1.0.2.0      1.0.2        =
1..0         1.0          =
1.0          1..0         =
EOF

echo "The following test should fail (test the tester)"
testvercomp 1 1 '>'

Run the tests:

$ . ./vercomp
The following tests should pass
Pass: '1 = 1'
Pass: '2.1 < 2.2'
Pass: '3.0.4.10 > 3.0.4.2'
Pass: '4.08 < 4.08.01'
Pass: '3.2.1.9.8144 > 3.2'
Pass: '3.2 < 3.2.1.9.8144'
Pass: '1.2 < 2.1'
Pass: '2.1 > 1.2'
Pass: '5.6.7 = 5.6.7'
Pass: '1.01.1 = 1.1.1'
Pass: '1.1.1 = 1.01.1'
Pass: '1 = 1.0'
Pass: '1.0 = 1'
Pass: '1.0.2.0 = 1.0.2'
Pass: '1..0 = 1.0'
Pass: '1.0 = 1..0'
The following test should fail (test the tester)
FAIL: Expected '>', Actual '=', Arg1 '1', Arg2 '1'