VERCMP(8)

✨ VERCMP(8) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to vercmp — the version comparison utility, straight out of the Pacman Manual. she's tiny, she's fierce, and she is literally the reason your package manager knows which version is newer. no cap. 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

vercmp — version comparison utility

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

vercmp [-h] [--help] <version1> <version2>

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so what does she actually do? vercmp takes two version numbers and tells you how they relate to each other. the output is literally just a number, and here's the decoder ring:

• < 0 : if ver1 < ver2
• = 0 : if ver1 == ver2
• > 0 : if ver1 > ver2

that's it. that's the whole vibe check. ✨

🎀 how the comparison actually works 🎀

Version comparison operates like this, and yes you're gonna wanna screenshot this:

Alphanumeric:

1.0a < 1.0b < 1.0beta < 1.0p < 1.0pre < 1.0rc < 1.0 < 1.0.a < 1.0.1

Numeric:

1 < 1.0 < 1.1 < 1.1.1 < 1.2 < 2.0 < 3.0.0

👑 epochs, aka the ones who overrule everything 👑

plot twist: version strings can also carry an epoch value, and that epoch will straight up overrule any version comparison — unless the epoch values are equal. she said "my rules, my house." 🏠

it's written in an epoch:version-rel format. for example, 2:1.0-1 is always greater than 1:3.6-1. always always. 🔥

🍓 the pkgrel tea 🍓

ngl this part trips people up, so listen: the pkgrel is only compared if it is available on both versions you hand to this tool. fr fr.

• comparing 1.5-1 and 1.5 will yield 0
• comparing 1.5-1 and 1.5-2 will yield < 0 as expected

why tho? this is mainly for supporting versioned dependencies that do not include the pkgrel. so it's a feature, not a bug, periodt. 💅

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -h, --help — Display summary of the available return codes. Must be the first option specified. (yes, literally first, don't try to be cute and put it anywhere else 🙈)

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

here's her in action, looking iconic:

$ vercmp 1 2
-1

$ vercmp 2 1
1

$ vercmp 2.0-1 1.7-6
1

$ vercmp 2.0 2.0-13
0

$ vercmp 4.34 1:001
-1

that last one? epoch doing epoch things. ate. 👑

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

pacman(8), makepkg(8), libalpm(3)

See the pacman website at https://archlinux.org/pacman/ for current information on pacman and its related tools.

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😭 BUGS 😭

Bugs? You must be kidding; there are no bugs in this software. 💀 (iconic confidence, honestly.)

But if we happen to be wrong — and, like, hypothetically we could be — please report them to the issue tracker at https://gitlab.archlinux.org/pacman/pacman/-/issues with specific information such as your command-line, the nature of the bug, and even the package database if it helps. give us the receipts bestie 🧾🫶

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🧚 AUTHORS 🧚

Current maintainers:

• Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org>
• Andrew Gregory <andrew.gregory.8@gmail.com>
• Morgan Adamiec <morganamilo@archlinux.org>

Past major contributors:

• Judd Vinet <jvinet@zeroflux.org>
• Aurelien Foret <aurelien@archlinux.org>
• Aaron Griffin <aaron@archlinux.org>
• Dan McGee <dan@archlinux.org>
• Xavier Chantry <shiningxc@gmail.com>
• Nagy Gabor <ngaba@bibl.u-szeged.hu>
• Dave Reisner <dreisner@archlinux.org>
• Eli Schwartz <eschwartz@archlinux.org>

For additional contributors, use git shortlog -s on the pacman.git repository.

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and that's the whole page, babe. go forth and compare versions responsibly. 🦋

Pacman 7.1.0 — dated 2026-10-15 — signing off, mwah 💖