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

if it's just about to know whether one version is lower than another I came up checking whether sort --version-sort changes the order of my version strings:

    string="$1
$2"
    [ "$string" == "$(sort --version-sort <<< "$string")" ]

Answer 2

Here's a pure Bash solution that supports revisions (e.g. '1.0-r1'), based on the answer posted by Dennis Williamson. It can easily be modified to support stuff like '-RC1' or extract the version from a more complex string by changing the regular expression.

For details regarding the implementation, please refer to in-code comments and/or enable the included debug code:

#!/bin/bash

# Compare two version strings [$1: version string 1 (v1), $2: version string 2 (v2)]
# Return values:
#   0: v1 == v2
#   1: v1 > v2
#   2: v1 < v2
# Based on: https://stackoverflow.com/a/4025065 by Dennis Williamson
function compare_versions() {

    # Trivial v1 == v2 test based on string comparison
    [[ "$1" == "$2" ]] && return 0

    # Local variables
    local regex="^(.*)-r([0-9]*)$" va1=() vr1=0 va2=() vr2=0 len i IFS="."

    # Split version strings into arrays, extract trailing revisions
    if [[ "$1" =~ ${regex} ]]; then
        va1=(${BASH_REMATCH[1]})
        [[ -n "${BASH_REMATCH[2]}" ]] && vr1=${BASH_REMATCH[2]}
    else
        va1=($1)
    fi
    if [[ "$2" =~ ${regex} ]]; then
        va2=(${BASH_REMATCH[1]})
        [[ -n "${BASH_REMATCH[2]}" ]] && vr2=${BASH_REMATCH[2]}
    else
        va2=($2)
    fi

    # Bring va1 and va2 to same length by filling empty fields with zeros
    (( ${#va1[@]} > ${#va2[@]} )) && len=${#va1[@]} || len=${#va2[@]}
    for ((i=0; i < len; ++i)); do
        [[ -z "${va1[i]}" ]] && va1[i]="0"
        [[ -z "${va2[i]}" ]] && va2[i]="0"
    done

    # Append revisions, increment length
    va1+=($vr1)
    va2+=($vr2)
    len=$((len+1))

    # *** DEBUG ***
    #echo "TEST: '${va1[@]} (?) ${va2[@]}'"

    # Compare version elements, check if v1 > v2 or v1 < v2
    for ((i=0; i < len; ++i)); do
        if (( 10#${va1[i]} > 10#${va2[i]} )); then
            return 1
        elif (( 10#${va1[i]} < 10#${va2[i]} )); then
            return 2
        fi
    done

    # All elements are equal, thus v1 == v2
    return 0
}

# Test compare_versions [$1: version string 1, $2: version string 2, $3: expected result]
function test_compare_versions() {
    local op
    compare_versions "$1" "$2"
    case $? in
        0) op="==" ;;
        1) op=">" ;;
        2) op="<" ;;
    esac
    if [[ "$op" == "$3" ]]; then
        echo -e "\e[1;32mPASS: '$1 $op $2'\e[0m"
    else
        echo -e "\e[1;31mFAIL: '$1 $3 $2' (result: '$1 $op $2')\e[0m"
    fi
}

echo -e "\nThe following tests should pass:"
while read -r test; do
    test_compare_versions $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         ==
1.0-r1       1.0-r3       <
1.0-r9       2.0          <
3.0-r15      3.0-r9       >
...-r1       ...-r2       <
2.0-r1       1.9.8.21-r2  >
1.0          3.8.9.32-r   <
-r           -r3          <
-r3          -r           >
-r3          -r3          ==
-r           -r           ==
0.0-r2       0.0.0.0-r2   ==
1.0.0.0-r2   1.0-r2       ==
0.0.0.1-r7   -r9          >
0.0-r0       0            ==
1.002.0-r6   1.2.0-r7     <
001.001-r2   1.1-r2       ==
5.6.1-r0     5.6.1        ==
EOF

echo -e "\nThe following tests should fail:"
while read -r test; do
    test_compare_versions $test
done << EOF
1            1            >
3.0.5-r5     3..5-r5      >
4.9.21-r3    4.8.22-r9    <
1.0-r        1.0-r1       ==
-r           1.0-r        >
-r1          0.0-r1       <
-r2          0-r2         <
EOF

echo -e "\nThe following line should be empty (local variables test):"
echo "$op $regex $va1 $vr1 $va2 $vr2 $len $i $IFS"

Answer 3

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'

Answer 4

function version { echo "$@" | awk -F. '{ printf("%d%03d%03d%03d\n", $1,$2,$3,$4); }'; }

Used as such:

if [ $(version $VAR) -ge $(version "6.2.0") ]; then
    echo "Version is up to date"
fi

(from https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/123408/11374)

Answer 5

This is for at most 4 fields in the version.

$ function ver { printf "%03d%03d%03d%03d" $(echo "$1" | tr '.' ' '); }
$ [ $(ver 10.9) -lt $(ver 10.10) ] && echo hello  
hello

Answer 6

Another approach(modified version of @joynes) that compares dotted versions as asked in the question
(i.e "1.2", "2.3.4", "1.0", "1.10.1", etc.).
The maximum number of positions has to be known in advance. The approach expects max 3 version positions.

expr $(printf "$1\n$2" | sort -t '.' -k 1,1 -k 2,2 -k 3,3 -g | sed -n 2p) != $2

example usage:

expr $(printf "1.10.1\n1.7" | sort -t '.' -k 1,1 -k 2,2 -k 3,3 -g | sed -n 2p) != "1.7"

returns: 1 since 1.10.1 is bigger than 1.7

expr $(printf "1.10.1\n1.11" | sort -t '.' -k 1,1 -k 2,2 -k 3,3 -g | sed -n 2p) != "1.11"

returns: 0 since 1.10.1 is lower than 1.11