How to compare two strings in dot separated versio

Question

Is there any way to compare such strings on bash, e.g.: 2.4.5 and 2.8 and 2.4.5.1?

Answer 1

I implemented yet another comparator function. This one had two specific requirements: (i) I didn't want the function to fail by using return 1 but echo instead; (ii) as we're retrieving versions from a git repository version "1.0" should be bigger than "1.0.2", meaning that "1.0" comes from trunk.

function version_compare {
  IFS="." read -a v_a <<< "$1"
  IFS="." read -a v_b <<< "$2"

  while [[ -n "$v_a" || -n "$v_b" ]]; do
    [[ -z "$v_a" || "$v_a" -gt "$v_b" ]] && echo 1 && return
    [[ -z "$v_b" || "$v_b" -gt "$v_a" ]] && echo -1 && return

    v_a=("${v_a[@]:1}")
    v_b=("${v_b[@]:1}")
  done

  echo 0
}

Feel free to comment and suggest improvements.

Answer 2

Here's a refinement of the top answer (Dennis's) that is more concise and uses a different return value scheme to make it easy to implement <= and >= with a single comparison. It also compares everything after the first character not in [0-9.] lexicographically, so 1.0rc1 < 1.0rc2.

# Compares two tuple-based, dot-delimited version numbers a and b (possibly
# with arbitrary string suffixes). Returns:
# 1 if a<b
# 2 if equal
# 3 if a>b
# Everything after the first character not in [0-9.] is compared
# lexicographically using ASCII ordering if the tuple-based versions are equal.
compare-versions() {
    if [[ $1 == $2 ]]; then
        return 2
    fi
    local IFS=.
    local i a=(${1%%[^0-9.]*}) b=(${2%%[^0-9.]*})
    local arem=${1#${1%%[^0-9.]*}} brem=${2#${2%%[^0-9.]*}}
    for ((i=0; i<${#a[@]} || i<${#b[@]}; i++)); do
        if ((10#${a[i]:-0} < 10#${b[i]:-0})); then
            return 1
        elif ((10#${a[i]:-0} > 10#${b[i]:-0})); then
            return 3
        fi
    done
    if [ "$arem" '<' "$brem" ]; then
        return 1
    elif [ "$arem" '>' "$brem" ]; then
        return 3
    fi
    return 2
}

Answer 3

GNU sort has an option for it:

printf '2.4.5\n2.8\n2.4.5.1\n' | sort -V

gives:

2.4.5
2.4.5.1
2.8

Answer 4

Here is a simple Bash function that uses no external commands. It works for version strings that have up to three numeric parts in them - less than 3 is fine as well. It can easily be extended for more. It implements =, <, <=, >, >=, and != conditions.

#!/bin/bash
vercmp() {
    version1=$1 version2=$2 condition=$3

    IFS=. v1_array=($version1) v2_array=($version2)
    v1=$((v1_array[0] * 100 + v1_array[1] * 10 + v1_array[2]))
    v2=$((v2_array[0] * 100 + v2_array[1] * 10 + v2_array[2]))
    diff=$((v2 - v1))
    [[ $condition = '='  ]] && ((diff == 0)) && return 0
    [[ $condition = '!=' ]] && ((diff != 0)) && return 0
    [[ $condition = '<'  ]] && ((diff >  0)) && return 0
    [[ $condition = '<=' ]] && ((diff >= 0)) && return 0
    [[ $condition = '>'  ]] && ((diff <  0)) && return 0
    [[ $condition = '>=' ]] && ((diff <= 0)) && return 0
    return 1
}

Here is the test:

for tv1 in '*' 1.1.1 2.5.3 7.3.0 0.5.7 10.3.9 8.55.32 0.0.1; do
    for tv2 in 3.1.1 1.5.3 4.3.0 0.0.7 0.3.9 11.55.32 10.0.0 '*'; do
      for c in '=' '>' '<' '>=' '<=' '!='; do
        vercmp "$tv1" "$tv2" "$c" && printf '%s\n' "$tv1 $c $tv2 is true" || printf '%s\n' "$tv1 $c $tv2 is false"
      done
    done
done

A subset of the test output:

<snip>

* >= * is true
* <= * is true
* != * is true
1.1.1 = 3.1.1 is false
1.1.1 > 3.1.1 is false
1.1.1 < 3.1.1 is true
1.1.1 >= 3.1.1 is false
1.1.1 <= 3.1.1 is true
1.1.1 != 3.1.1 is true
1.1.1 = 1.5.3 is false
1.1.1 > 1.5.3 is false
1.1.1 < 1.5.3 is true
1.1.1 >= 1.5.3 is false
1.1.1 <= 1.5.3 is true
1.1.1 != 1.5.3 is true
1.1.1 = 4.3.0 is false
1.1.1 > 4.3.0 is false

<snip>

Answer 5

I'm using embedded Linux (Yocto) with BusyBox. BusyBox sort doesn't have a -V option (but BusyBox expr match can do regular expressions). So I needed a Bash version compare which worked with that constraint.

I've made the following (similar to Dennis Williamson's answer) to compare using a "natural sort" type of algorithm. It splits the string into numeric parts and non-numeric parts; it compares the numeric parts numerically (so 10 is greater than 9), and compares the non-numeric parts as a plain ASCII comparison.

ascii_frag() {
    expr match "$1" "\([^[:digit:]]*\)"
}

ascii_remainder() {
    expr match "$1" "[^[:digit:]]*\(.*\)"
}

numeric_frag() {
    expr match "$1" "\([[:digit:]]*\)"
}

numeric_remainder() {
    expr match "$1" "[[:digit:]]*\(.*\)"
}

vercomp_debug() {
    OUT="$1"
    #echo "${OUT}"
}

# return 1 for $1 > $2
# return 2 for $1 < $2
# return 0 for equal
vercomp() {
    local WORK1="$1"
    local WORK2="$2"
    local NUM1="", NUM2="", ASCII1="", ASCII2=""
    while true; do
        vercomp_debug "ASCII compare"
        ASCII1=`ascii_frag "${WORK1}"`
        ASCII2=`ascii_frag "${WORK2}"`
        WORK1=`ascii_remainder "${WORK1}"`
        WORK2=`ascii_remainder "${WORK2}"`
        vercomp_debug "\"${ASCII1}\" remainder \"${WORK1}\""
        vercomp_debug "\"${ASCII2}\" remainder \"${WORK2}\""

        if [ "${ASCII1}" \> "${ASCII2}" ]; then
            vercomp_debug "ascii ${ASCII1} > ${ASCII2}"
            return 1
        elif [ "${ASCII1}" \< "${ASCII2}" ]; then
            vercomp_debug "ascii ${ASCII1} < ${ASCII2}"
            return 2
        fi
        vercomp_debug "--------"

        vercomp_debug "Numeric compare"
        NUM1=`numeric_frag "${WORK1}"`
        NUM2=`numeric_frag "${WORK2}"`
        WORK1=`numeric_remainder "${WORK1}"`
        WORK2=`numeric_remainder "${WORK2}"`
        vercomp_debug "\"${NUM1}\" remainder \"${WORK1}\""
        vercomp_debug "\"${NUM2}\" remainder \"${WORK2}\""

        if [ -z "${NUM1}" -a -z "${NUM2}" ]; then
            vercomp_debug "blank 1 and blank 2 equal"
            return 0
        elif [ -z "${NUM1}" -a -n "${NUM2}" ]; then
            vercomp_debug "blank 1 less than non-blank 2"
            return 2
        elif [ -n "${NUM1}" -a -z "${NUM2}" ]; then
            vercomp_debug "non-blank 1 greater than blank 2"
            return 1
        fi

        if [ "${NUM1}" -gt "${NUM2}" ]; then
            vercomp_debug "num ${NUM1} > ${NUM2}"
            return 1
        elif [ "${NUM1}" -lt "${NUM2}" ]; then
            vercomp_debug "num ${NUM1} < ${NUM2}"
            return 2
        fi
        vercomp_debug "--------"
    done
}

It can compare more complicated version numbers such as

• 1.2-r3 versus 1.2-r4
• 1.2rc3 versus 1.2r4

Note that it doesn't return the same result for some of the corner-cases in Dennis Williamson's answer. In particular:

1            1.0          <
1.0          1            >
1.0.2.0      1.0.2        >
1..0         1.0          >
1.0          1..0         <

But those are corner cases, and I think the results are still reasonable.

Answer 6

Here is another pure bash solution without any external calls:

#!/bin/bash

function version_compare {

IFS='.' read -ra ver1 <<< "$1"
IFS='.' read -ra ver2 <<< "$2"

[[ ${#ver1[@]} -gt ${#ver2[@]} ]] && till=${#ver1[@]} || till=${#ver2[@]}

for ((i=0; i<${till}; i++)); do

    local num1; local num2;

    [[ -z ${ver1[i]} ]] && num1=0 || num1=${ver1[i]}
    [[ -z ${ver2[i]} ]] && num2=0 || num2=${ver2[i]}

    if [[ $num1 -gt $num2 ]]; then
        echo ">"; return 0
    elif
       [[ $num1 -lt $num2 ]]; then
        echo "<"; return 0
    fi
done

echo "="; return 0
}

echo "${1} $(version_compare "${1}" "${2}") ${2}"

And there is even more simple solution, if you are sure that the versions in question do not contain leading zeros after the first dot:

#!/bin/bash

function version_compare {

local ver1=${1//.}
local ver2=${2//.}


    if [[ $ver1 -gt $ver2 ]]; then
        echo ">"; return 0
    elif    
       [[ $ver1 -lt $ver2 ]]; then
        echo "<"; return 0
    fi 

echo "="; return 0
}

echo "${1} $(version_compare "${1}" "${2}") ${2}"

This will work for something like 1.2.3 vs 1.3.1 vs 0.9.7, but won't work with 1.2.3 vs 1.2.3.0 or 1.01.1 vs 1.1.1