Re: [PATCH v2] kbuild: pacman-pkg: make "rc" releases adhere to pacman versioning scheme

[Viktor Jägersküpper]

On 5/16/26 17:33, Nathan Chancellor wrote:
> On Sat, May 16, 2026 at 04:27:39PM +0200, Viktor Jägersküpper wrote:
>> On 5/15/26 23:58, Viktor Jägersküpper wrote:
>>> The package versioning scheme does not enable smooth upgrades from "rc"
>>> releases to the corresponding stable releases (e.g. 7.0.0-rc7 -> 7.0.0)
>>> because pacman considers that a downgrade due to the underscore in
>>> pkgver (e.g. 7.0.0_rc7), see e.g. vercmp(8) for an explanation of the
>>> package version comparison used by pacman. Package versions which are
>>> derived from said releases (e.g. built from git revisions) are
>>> similarly affected. Fix this by modifying pkgver in order to remove the
>>> hyphen from kernel versions containing "-rcN", where N is a
>>> non-negative integer.
>>>
>>> Acked-by: Thomas Weißschuh <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Signed-off-by: Viktor Jägersküpper <viktor_jaegerskuepper@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>> ---
>>> v1 -> v2:
>>> - make the substitution more restrictive
>>> - enhance commit message accordingly
>>> - add Acked-by tag
>>>
>>> v1: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-kbuild/20260513231745.51780-1-viktor_jaegerskuepper@xxxxxxxxxx/
>>>
>>> BTW this also works for something like "5.10.248-rt143-rc1" which is a
>>> recent example of an "rc" release of a realtime kernel.
>>>
>>>  scripts/package/PKGBUILD | 2 +-
>>>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/scripts/package/PKGBUILD b/scripts/package/PKGBUILD
>>> index 452374d63c24..1213c8e04671 100644
>>> --- a/scripts/package/PKGBUILD
>>> +++ b/scripts/package/PKGBUILD
>>> @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ for pkg in $_extrapackages; do
>>>  	pkgname+=("${pkgbase}-${pkg}")
>>>  done
>>>  
>>> -pkgver="${KERNELRELEASE//-/_}"
>>> +pkgver="$(echo "${KERNELRELEASE}" | sed 's/-\(rc[0-9]\+\)/\1/;s/-/_/g')"
>>
>> I will send a v3 patch later with the first substitution changed to
>> match "-rcN" where N is a strictly positive integer because this is
>> what we really had in the kernel so far, at least as far as I can
>> remember.
> 
> Do you mean dropping the '\+' portion of the regex? If so, I think I
> would rather keep what you have here since while an -rc10 is incredibly
> unlikely nowadays (we pretty much never go past -rc8), it has happened
> once before in 3.1:
> 
>   $ git tag -l | grep -- -rc10
>   v3.1-rc10

I was only concerned about 'rc0', so I came up with this:

's/-\(rc[1-9][0-9]*\)/\1/;s/-/_/g'

For 'rc' releases starting from 'rc1' this matches '-rcN' where N is a
strictly positive integer. Since 'git tag -l | grep -- rc0' shows
nothing, I assume that there is an unwritten rule that counting from 1
is the correct choice for kernel 'rc' releases. :-)

Compare that to the Debian substitution code: 's/-\(rc[1-9]\)/~\1/'
> We can leave the Debian case you pointed at earlier the way it is for
> now but if we are making a change here, we might as well make it as
> future proof as possible. If you (or others) really feel strongly
> otherwise, feel free to ignore me :)
Actually I have no preference. If there is consensus that the regex for
strictly positive integers is better, I can send a v3 patch. The Debian
code can be adjusted in a follow-up patch.

BTW I forgot to mention that this patch also addresses the stable 'rc'
preview releases which also start from 'rc1'.

Best regards,
Viktor