NerdVana

Version sorting in Perl

Written 10 years ago by Eric Schwimmer

Need to sort two or more numeric version strings in Perl? Hate life? Then consider using this little beaut:

sub verComp                                                    
{                                                              
    my ($a,$b) = map [split '\.'], @_;                         
    for (0..($#$a,$#$b)[$#$a>$#$b])                            
      { return $a->[$_] <=> $b->[$_] if $a->[$_] <=> $b->[$_] }
    return $#$a <=> $#$b;                                      
}                                                              

my @versions = ('1.2.3.4','1.2.3','3.2.3','1.2.3.4.5','2.3.4');
print join ' -> ', sort { verComp($a,$b) } @versions;          

It works!

$ ./vercomp.pl
1.2.3 -> 1.2.3.4 -> 1.2.3.4.5 -> 2.3.4 -> 3.2.3