[Neurodebian-upstream] Debian Version Strings

[Sebastian Eichelbaum]

Hi Guys

When searching about the version strings used in Debian packages, a lot of pages show up which only tell you something about the allowed syntax (including the Debian Policy Manual). It is hard to get information on the actual meaning of certain characters in version strings. 

Does anyone of you know some useful source of information? I am especially interested in the "+" and "~" characters in version strings:

packagename_1.2.3+xyz
packagename_1.2.3~xyz

What do they tell me? In my case I want to provide a release candidate package which should also contains the revision number in its version number: 

libopenwalnut1_1.3.0rc1+hg5767

but lintian complains about "rc-version-greater-than-expected-version 1.3.0rc1+hg5767 > 1.3.0 (consider using 1.3.0~rc1+hg5767)". The suggestion of lintian is to use 1.3.0~rc1+hg5767 but I do not know whether this is what I intend it to because I do not know the meaning of + and ~ completely.

Does anyone have/had a similar problem?

Thank you in advance
Sebastian

-- 
Dipl.-Inf. Sebastian Eichelbaum
Universität Leipzig
Institut für Informatik
Abteilung Bild- und Signalverarbeitung
PF 100920
D-04009 Leipzig