Currently in rawhide

• php-7.3.0~rc4-1
• php-pecl-xdebug-2.7.0~beta1-1

-1

+1

I'd like to understand why PHP needs an exception and why it's necessary to it in a different way than all other Fedora packages. What's special here?

PHP is not different from other packages, but I really think we have to allow tilde, and as some seems reluctant, perhaps a good idea to start with a small set of packages: PHP is a candidate for this.

In PHP world, dependencies (pear or composer) sometine refer on pre-release version

ex (from swiftmailer)

    "require-dev": {
        "mockery/mockery": "~0.9.1",
        "symfony/phpunit-bridge": "~3.3@dev"

• we can write Requires php-composer(symfony/phpunit-bridge) >= 3.3~dev (match upstream dep)
• while Requires php-composer(symfony/phpunit-bridge) >= 3.3-0.1 doesn't make any sense (IMHO) as it rely on packaging artifact

I'd rather have it banned/allowed in general rather than having small set of packages doing it.

Also:

$ rpmdev-vercmp '3.3~dev' '3.3~alpha'
3.3~dev > 3.3~alpha

If we write something like Requires php-composer(symfony/phpunit-bridge) >= 3.3~dev, this can bite us.

indeed, upstream uses: dev => alpha => beta => RC
so we have to use: DEV => alpha => beta => rc

But this is exactly experience we need to acquire.