Intro to PEAR

• Why Standardize?

• Common Perception of What X.Y Means

• Tools Need to Compare Versions

• major [.minor [.patch]] [pre]

• "major" version: numeric, 0 means "experimental"

• "minor" version: new features ok, BC maintained

• "patch" version: bug fixes, tiny changes

• "pre" element: {dev,a,b,RC,pl}//N//

• Comparing:

• version_compare() function (from PHP 4.1.0)

• 0.x < 1.x < 2.x ...

• 0.1 < 0.9 < 0.10 < 1.0 ...

• 1.0dev1 < 1.0a1 < 1.0b1 < 1.0RC1 < 1.0 < 1.0pl1