Rationale: CVS generates revision numbers that are not actually floating point numbers. The Perl module tools like CPAN.pm do not understand that these numbers are not real floating point, causing problems for users of these tools.
I've been working at fixing this 'misfeature', see
http://search.cpan.org/author/JPEACOCK/version-0.28/
I've currently got this into the core of 5.9.0 (and unless it is removed it will be in 5.10). This module can be used as far back as 5.005_03 (though it does require XS).
I believe there was some interest in using my version model in CPANPLUS, so this prohibition may be waning. And of course, there are ways around it, too:
$VERSION = sprintf("%d.%02d",split(/\./,(qw$Revision: 1.9 $)[1]));
(it's not pretty, but it will work as long as you don't branch). My module supports the much more readable:
use version;
$VERSION = new version qw$Revision: 1.9 $;which sadly doesn't help me that much since I am moving to Subversion myself...
HTH
John
-- John Peacock Director of Information Research and Technology Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 4720 Boston Way Lanham, MD 20706 301-459-3366 x.5010 fax 301-429-5747
