How to compare two strings in dot separated version format in Bash?

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

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 3

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 4

• Function V - pure bash solution, no external utilities required.
• Supports = == != < <= > and >= (lexicographic).
• Optional tail letter comparison: 1.5a < 1.5b
• Unequal length comparison: 1.6 > 1.5b
• Reads left-to-right: if V 1.5 '<' 1.6; then ....

<>

# Sample output
# Note: ++ (true) and __ (false) mean that V works correctly.

++ 3.6 '>' 3.5b
__ 2.5.7 '<=' 2.5.6
++ 2.4.10 '<' 2.5.9
__ 3.0002 '>' 3.0003.3
++ 4.0-RC2 '>' 4.0-RC1

<>

function V() # $1-a $2-op $3-$b
# Compare a and b as version strings. Rules:
# R1: a and b : dot-separated sequence of items. Items are numeric. The last item can optionally end with letters, i.e., 2.5 or 2.5a.
# R2: Zeros are automatically inserted to compare the same number of items, i.e., 1.0 < 1.0.1 means 1.0.0 < 1.0.1 => yes.
# R3: op can be '=' '==' '!=' '<' '<=' '>' '>=' (lexicographic).
# R4: Unrestricted number of digits of any item, i.e., 3.0003 > 3.0000004.
# R5: Unrestricted number of items.
{
  local a=$1 op=$2 b=$3 al=${1##*.} bl=${3##*.}
  while [[ $al =~ ^[[:digit:]] ]]; do al=${al:1}; done
  while [[ $bl =~ ^[[:digit:]] ]]; do bl=${bl:1}; done
  local ai=${a%$al} bi=${b%$bl}

  local ap=${ai//[[:digit:]]} bp=${bi//[[:digit:]]}
  ap=${ap//./.0} bp=${bp//./.0}

  local w=1 fmt=$a.$b x IFS=.
  for x in $fmt; do [ ${#x} -gt $w ] && w=${#x}; done
  fmt=${*//[^.]}; fmt=${fmt//./%${w}s}
  printf -v a $fmt $ai$bp; printf -v a "%s-%${w}s" $a $al
  printf -v b $fmt $bi$ap; printf -v b "%s-%${w}s" $b $bl

  case $op in
    '<='|'>=' ) [ "$a" ${op:0:1} "$b" ] || [ "$a" = "$b" ] ;;
    * )         [ "$a" $op "$b" ] ;;
  esac
}

Code Explained

Line 1: Define local variables:

• a, op, b - comparison operands and operator, i.e., "3.6" > "3.5a".
• al, bl - letter tails of a and b, initialized to the tail item, i.e., "6" and "5a".

Lines 2, 3: Left-trim digits from the tail items so only letters are left, if any, i.e., "" and "a".

Line 4: Right trim letters from a and b to leave just the sequence of numeric items as local variables ai and bi, i.e., "3.6" and "3.5". Notable example: "4.01-RC2" > "4.01-RC1" yields ai="4.01" al="-RC2" and bi="4.01" bl="-RC1".

Line 6: Define local variables:

• ap, bp - zero right-paddings for ai and bi. Start by keeping the inter-item dots only, of which number equals the number of elements of a and b respectively.

Line 7: Then append "0" after each dot to make padding masks.

Line 9: Local variables:

• w - item width
• fmt - printf format string, to be calculated
• x - temporary
• With IFS=. bash splits variable values at '.'.

Line 10: Calculate w, the maximum item width, which will be used to align items for lexicographic comparison. In our example w=2.

Line 11: Create the printf alignment format by replacing each character of $a.$b with %${w}s, i.e., "3.6" > "3.5a" yields "%2s%2s%2s%2s".

Line 12: "printf -v a" sets the value of variable a. This is equivalent to a=sprintf(...) in many programming languages. Note that here, by effect of IFS=. the arguments to printf split into individual items.

With the first printf items of a are left-padded with spaces while enough "0" items are appended from bp to ensure that the resulting string a can be meaningfully compared to a similarly formatted b.

Note that we append bp - not ap to ai because ap and bp may have different lenghts, so this results in a and b having equal lengths.

With the second printf we append the letter part al to a with enough padding to enable meaningful comparison. Now a is ready for comparison with b.

Line 13: Same as line 12 but for b.

Line 15: Split comparison cases between non-built-in (<= and >=) and built-in operators.

Line 16: If the comparison operator is <= then test for a<b or a=b - respectively >= a<b or a=b

Line 17: Test for built-in comparison operators.

<>

# All tests

function P { printf "$@"; }
function EXPECT { printf "$@"; }
function CODE { awk $BASH_LINENO'==NR{print " "$2,$3,$4}' "$0"; }
P 'Note: ++ (true) and __ (false) mean that V works correctly.\n'

V 2.5    '!='  2.5      && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 2.5    '='   2.5      && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 2.5    '=='  2.5      && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE

V 2.5a   '=='  2.5b     && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 2.5a   '<'   2.5b     && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 2.5a   '>'   2.5b     && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 2.5b   '>'   2.5a     && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 2.5b   '<'   2.5a     && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 3.5    '<'   3.5b     && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 3.5    '>'   3.5b     && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 3.5b   '>'   3.5      && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 3.5b   '<'   3.5      && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 3.6    '<'   3.5b     && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 3.6    '>'   3.5b     && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 3.5b   '<'   3.6      && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 3.5b   '>'   3.6      && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE

V 2.5.7  '<='  2.5.6    && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 2.4.10 '<'   2.4.9    && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 2.4.10 '<'   2.5.9    && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 3.4.10 '<'   2.5.9    && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 2.4.8  '>'   2.4.10   && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 2.5.6  '<='  2.5.6    && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 2.5.6  '>='  2.5.6    && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 3.0    '<'   3.0.3    && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 3.0002 '<'   3.0003.3 && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 3.0002 '>'   3.0003.3 && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 3.0003.3 '<' 3.0002   && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE
V 3.0003.3 '>' 3.0002   && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE

V 4.0-RC2 '>' 4.0-RC1   && P + || P _; EXPECT +; CODE
V 4.0-RC2 '<' 4.0-RC1   && P + || P _; EXPECT _; CODE

Answer 5

### the answer is does we second argument is higher
function _ver_higher {
        ver=`echo -ne "$1\n$2" |sort -Vr |head -n1`
        if [ "$2" == "$1" ]; then
                return 1
        elif [ "$2" == "$ver" ]; then
                return 0
        else
                return 1
        fi
}

if _ver_higher $1 $2; then
        echo higher
else
        echo same or less
fi

It's pretty simple and small.