[NTG-pdftex] Version numbering

[Martin Schröder]

On 2005-06-08 09:05:41 +0200, Heiko Oberdiek wrote:
>   Thus I think, it is quite too late to change this interface.

No change is needed; currently \pdftexrevision is a char with
alphanums, in the future it will be a char with digits. This
shouldn't break anything. 

Do we really need the information of \pdftexrevision as a number?
It would be nice, but is it needed?

> * Suggestion for interface that respects compatibility
>   and adds an interface for three numbers:
> 
>   A.B.C
>   A \in [1..\infty]
>   B \in [0..99]
>   C \in [0..25]
> 
>   The whole version number is printed as: printf("%d.%d.%d", A, B, C)
> 
>   \pdftexmainversion:   readonly integer for A
>   \pdftexsubversion:    readonly integer for B
>   \pdftexbugfixversion: readonly integer for C
> 
>   \pdftexversion := \pdftexmainversion * 100 + \pdftexsubversion
>   \pdftexrevision := to_lowerletter(\pdftexbugfixversion)

Why?

[...]

> Thus we have already A, B, and C. What we really need is rather
> a specification:
> * data type: A, B, C are numbers (/strings), range

    A \in [1..\infty]
    B \in [0..99]
    C in "0".."9" (currently it's "a".."z"

B is only increased by 10.

> * how does the version look like, formatting issues

A.BB.C

> and the definition of semantics:
> * meaning of A, B, C

A and B have no meaning for themselves; together they are the
current version. C is the patchlevel.

> * when to increase A, B, or C

C is increased only for bug fixing releases.

A.B is increased by 0.1 by every release with new features.

Best regards
    Martin
-- 
                    http://www.tm.oneiros.de