How to compare a program's version in a shell script?

Question

Suppose I want to compare gcc version to see whether the system has the minimum version installed or not.

To check the gcc version, I executed the following

gcc --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f4

The output was

4.8.5

So, I wrote a simple if statement to check this version against some other value

if [ "$(gcc --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f4)" -lt 5.0.0 ]; then
    echo "Less than 5.0.0"
else
    echo "Greater than 5.0.0"
fi

But it throws an error:

[: integer expression expected: 4.8.5

I understood my mistake that I was using strings to compare and the -lt requires integer. So, is there any other way to compare the versions?

Answer 1

I don't know if it is beautiful, but it is working for every version format I know.

#!/bin/bash
currentver="$(gcc -dumpversion)"
requiredver="5.0.0"
 if [ "$(printf '%s\n' "$requiredver" "$currentver" | sort -V | head -n1)" = "$requiredver" ]; then 
        echo "Greater than or equal to ${requiredver}"
 else
        echo "Less than ${requiredver}"
 fi

(Note: better version by the user 'wildcard': https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/135943/wildcard , removed additional condition)

Answer 2

Shorter version:

version_greater_equal()
{
    printf '%s\n%s\n' "$2" "$1" | sort --check=quiet --version-sort
}

version_greater_equal "${gcc_version}" 8.2 || die "need 8.2 or above"

Answer 3

Here I give a solution for comparing Unix Kernel versions. And it should work for others such as gcc. I only care for the first 2 version number but you can add another layer of logic. It is one liner and I wrote it in multiple line for understanding.

check_linux_version() {
    version_good=$(uname -r | awk 'BEGIN{ FS="."}; 
    { if ($1 < 4) { print "N"; } 
      else if ($1 == 4) { 
          if ($2 < 4) { print "N"; } 
          else { print "Y"; } 
      } 
      else { print "Y"; }
    }')

    #if [ "$current" \< "$expected" ]; then
    if [ "$version_good" = "N" ]; then
        current=$(uname -r)
        echo current linux version too low
        echo current Linux: $current
        echo required 4.4 minimum
        return 1
    fi
}

You can modify this and use it for gcc version checking.

Answer 4

function version_compare () {
  function sub_ver () {
    local len=${#1}
    temp=${1%%"."*} && indexOf=`echo ${1%%"."*} | echo ${#temp}`
    echo -e "${1:0:indexOf}"
  }
  function cut_dot () {
    local offset=${#1}
    local length=${#2}
    echo -e "${2:((++offset)):length}"
  }
  if [ -z "$1" ] || [ -z "$2" ]; then
    echo "=" && exit 0
  fi
  local v1=`echo -e "${1}" | tr -d '[[:space:]]'`
  local v2=`echo -e "${2}" | tr -d '[[:space:]]'`
  local v1_sub=`sub_ver $v1`
  local v2_sub=`sub_ver $v2`
  if (( v1_sub > v2_sub )); then
    echo ">"
  elif (( v1_sub < v2_sub )); then
    echo "<"
  else
    version_compare `cut_dot $v1_sub $v1` `cut_dot $v2_sub $v2`
  fi
}

### Usage:

version_compare "1.2.3" "1.2.4"
# Output: <

Credit goes to @Shellman

Answer 5

We used to do a lot of version checking in a GNU makefile. We shelled out through the makefile facilities. We had to detect old Binutils and buggy compilers and workaround them on the fly.

The pattern we used was:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

CC=$(command -v gcc)
GREP=$(command -v grep)

# Fixup CC and GREP as needed. It may be needed on AIX, BSDs, and Solaris
if [[ -f "/usr/gnu/bin/grep" ]]; then
    GREP="/usr/gnu/bin/grep"
elif [[ -f "/usr/linux/bin/grep" ]]; then
    GREP="/usr/linux/bin/grep"
elif [[ -f "/usr/xpg4/bin/grep" ]]; then
    GREP="/usr/xpg4/bin/grep"
fi

# Check compiler for GCC 4.8 or later
GCC48_OR_LATER=$("$CXX" -v 2>&1 | "$GREP" -i -c -E "gcc version (4\.[8-9]|[5-9]\.)")
if [[ "$GCC48_OR_LATER" -ne 0 ]];
then
   ...
fi

# Check assembler for GAS 2.19 or later
GAS219_OR_LATER=$("$CXX" -xc -c /dev/null -Wa,-v -o/dev/null 2>&1 | "$GREP" -c -E "GNU assembler version (2\.19|2\.[2-9]|[3-9])")
if [[ "$GAS219_OR_LATER" -ne 0 ]];
then
   ...
fi

Answer 6

With lastversion CLI utility you can compare any arbitrary versions, e.g.:

#> lastversion 1.0.0 -gt 0.9.9
#> 1.0.0

Exit code 0 when "greater" condition is satisfied.