In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Elaine -HFB- Ashton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >One note about $VERSION - > >For a regular version it should be 1.01 and for an alpha/beta it should be >1.01_01 or somesuch where the "_nn" denotes the alpha.
I thought the alpha/beta distinction was only relevant when there was a earlier GA release (so CPAN.pm doesn't upgrade 1.01 to 1.01_01 or some such.) Nevertheless, $VERSION should always be a number so that required version numbers work without extraneous warnings: ~ $perl -we'use Date::Roman 1.0' Argument "1.0.1" isn't numeric in subroutine entry at -e line 1. Same thing happens with $VERSION="1.00_01" though, and MakeMaker (e.g. make dist's tarball name) loses the _ if you only say $VERSION=1.00_01; Extensive discussion of this problem occured on perl5-porters in Feb and Mar under subjects '$VERSION problem', 'UNIVERSAL::version objects', and 'Argument "1.23_45" isn't numeric in subroutine entry'. perlmodstyle now recommends (change #15420) a two or three line incantation for alpha/beta $VERSION's: $VERSION = "1.12_01"; $XS_VERSION = $VERSION; # only needed if you have XS code $VERSION = eval $VERSION; (Automatic VERSION objectification didn't make it into 5.8.0.)
