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RPM-VERSION(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual RPM-VERSION(7)
rpm-version - RPM version system
[EPOCH:]VERSION[-RELEASE]
A label known as EVR is used to refer to software versions in RPM,
consisting of up to three components:
• VERSION reflects the actual packaged software version.
• RELEASE reflects packaging revisions within that software
version.
• EPOCH is an artificial override to allow working around
versioning anomalies.
Only the VERSION component is mandatory in an EVR label. All RPM
packages have a VERSION and a RELEASE, however.
Version
The VERSION string reflects the actual packaged software version.
The string consists of ASCII alphanumeric characters, optionally
segmented with the separators period (.), underscore (_) and the
plus sign (+), and operators tilde (~) and caret (^).
The operators are used to map pre- and post-release version
strings into a coherent upgrade.
Notably, the dash character (-) can NOT be used in VERSION or
RELEASE as it is the component separator.
Release
The RELEASE reflects a revision within a single software version.
Ideally, RELEASE is a simple integer that is incremented whenever
changes are made to a package, and should be reset (to 1) whenever
the software version changes.
Technically, the format is exactly the same as for VERSION.
Epoch
The EPOCH is a non-negative integer, separated from the version
with a colon (:). It's the most significant part of an EVR,
skewing version comparison to make an older version to appear
newer. It's sometimes necessary to work around version anomalies
such as a software project changing its versioning scheme, but
also packaging errors.
An omitted EPOCH has an implicit value of zero.
The epoch should be only used as a last resort. It violates the
principle of least surprise, and changing it requires all related
versioned dependencies in other packages to be updated
accordingly.
Comparing
Two EVRs are compared left to right, one component at a time. The
components are compared left to right, a segment at a time. The
comparison stops as soon as a segment or component level
difference is found, so if eg. the epochs differ, the rest of the
EVR is not considered at all.
Within components, consecutive alphabetic characters and
consecutive numbers form implicit segments. Explicit segments are
denoted by separators and operators. Numeric segments are compared
numerically as integers with leading zeros ignored, otherwise
lexicographical comparison is used. That is, abc123 consists of
two segments: abc and 123 and is equal to abc0123, abc.123 and
abc.000123 despite difference in appearance.
Numeric segments are considered newer than alphabetic segments
regardless of the actual content. When otherwise equal, the
component with more segments is considered newer, and similarly an
EVR with more components is considered newer. For example, 0.0 is
newer than 0 and 1.xyz is older than 1.0 but newer than 1.
The segment separator characters are not compared, so they can be
used interchangeably, and multiple consecutive separators are
treated as if only one separator was used. Thus, 1.0 is equal to
1+0 and 1+.+0.
The tilde operator causes a segment to sort older, and is used for
pre-release versions. For example 2.0~beta1 is older than 2.0 or
2.0~rc1, and newer than 1.0. The caret operator is essentially the
opposite of tilde. It causes a segment to sort newer, and is used
for post-release snapshots that exist between actual software
releases. For example, 2.0^150825 is newer than 2.0 but older than
2.0.1.
123
A simple one-segment version 123. Newer than 99, older than
321.
1.0.1
A segmented version string 1.0.1, such as commonly used in
software projects to indicate major.minor.micro semantics.
Newer than 1.0, older than 1.0.2.
2.60.1-1
First release of version 2.60.1. Newer than 2.0 or 2.60, but
older than 3.0.
1.0-5
Fifth release of version 1.0, newer than 1.0 or 1.0-1, older
than 1.0.1.
5:3.0-1
First release of version 3.0, with epoch of 5. Newer than for
6.0-1, or 4:6.0-1, older than 5:3.1-1.
1.0~beta2
Pre-release beta2 of version 1.0. Newer than 0.99 and
1.0~beta1, older than 1.0.
2.0^20250611
Post-release snapshot 20250611 of version 2.0. Newer than 2.0,
older than 2.0.1.
Various non-obvious behaviors and dark corners exist within the
version comparison algorithm, but are difficult to address due to
high risk of breaking existing packages:
• Non-ASCII characters are ignored and thus equal: 1.1.α equals
1.1.β and even 1.1.ββ. rpmbuild(1) rejects such EVRs but it's
possible to encounter "illegal" values via API usage, very old
packages and packages created with 3rd party tools.
• Implicit segments can be deceptive: 1.f is newer than 1c.f.
The result becomes more obvious by making the segments
explicit: 1.f is newer than 1.c.f because the segments are
compared one by one, and c sorts lower than f
lexicographically.
rpm(8) rpmbuild(1) rpmsort(1)
http://www.rpm.org/
This page is part of the rpm (RPM Package Manager) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm⟩. It is not known
how to report bugs for this man page; if you know, please send a
mail to man-pages@man7.org. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm.git⟩ on
2026-01-16. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
that was found in the repository was 2026-01-15.) If you discover
any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
mail to man-pages@man7.org
RPM 6.0.90 2026-01-16 RPM-VERSION(7)
Pages that refer to this page: rpmsort(1), rpm-lua(7), rpm-scriptlets(7), rpm(8)
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HTML rendering created 2026-01-16 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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