6. Compatibility

Compatibility refers to the ability to restrict the versions of the dependencies that your project is compatible with. If the compatibility for a dependency is not given, the project is assumed to be compatible with all versions of that dependency.

Compatibility for a dependency is entered in the Project.toml file as for example:

[compat]
julia = "1.6"
Example = "0.5"

After a compatibility entry is put into the project file, up can be used to apply it.

The format of the version specifier is described in detail below.

Version specifier format

Similar to other package managers, the Julia package manager respects semantic versioning (semver), with an exception for leading zeros. As an example, a version specifier given as e.g. 1.2.3 is therefore assumed to be compatible with the versions [1.2.3 - 2.0.0) where ) is a non-inclusive upper bound. More specifically, a version specifier is either given as a caret specifier, e.g. ^1.2.3 or as a tilde specifier, e.g. ~1.2.3. Caret specifiers are the default and hence 1.2.3 == ^1.2.3. The difference between a caret and tilde is described in the next section. The union of multiple version specifiers can be formed by comma separating individual version specifiers, e.g.

[compat]
Example = "1.2, 2"

will result in [1.2.0, 3.0.0). Note leading zeros are treated differently, e.g. Example = "0.2, 1" would only result in [0.2.0 - 0.3.0) ∪ [1.0.0 - 2.0.0). See the next section for more information on versions with leading zeros.

Behavior of versions with leading zeros (0.0.x and 0.x.y)

While the semver specification says that all versions with a major version of 0 (versions before 1.0.0) are incompatible with each other, we have decided to only apply that for when both the major and minor versions are zero. In other words, 0.0.1 and 0.0.2 are considered incompatible. A pre-1.0 version with non-zero minor version (0.a.b with a != 0) is considered compatible with versions with the same minor version and smaller or equal patch versions (0.a.c with c <= b); i.e., the versions 0.2.2 and 0.2.3 are compatible with 0.2.1 and 0.2.0. Versions with a major version of 0 and different minor versions are not considered compatible, so the version 0.3.0 might have breaking changes from 0.2.0. To that end, the [compat] entry:

[compat]
Example = "0.0.1"

results in a versionbound on Example as [0.0.1, 0.0.2) (which is equivalent to only the version 0.0.1), while the [compat] entry:

[compat]
Example = "0.2.1"

results in a versionbound on Example as [0.2.1, 0.3.0).

In particular, a package may set version = "0.2.4" when it has feature additions compared to 0.2.3 as long as it remains backward compatible with 0.2.0. See also The version field.

Caret specifiers

A caret (^) specifier allows upgrade that would be compatible according to semver. This is the default behavior if no specifier is used. An updated dependency is considered compatible if the new version does not modify the left-most non zero digit in the version specifier.

Some examples are shown below.

[compat]
PkgA = "^1.2.3" # [1.2.3, 2.0.0)
PkgB = "^1.2"   # [1.2.0, 2.0.0)
PkgC = "^1"     # [1.0.0, 2.0.0)
PkgD = "^0.2.3" # [0.2.3, 0.3.0)
PkgE = "^0.0.3" # [0.0.3, 0.0.4)
PkgF = "^0.0"   # [0.0.0, 0.1.0)
PkgG = "^0"     # [0.0.0, 1.0.0)

Tilde specifiers

A tilde specifier provides more limited upgrade possibilities. When specifying major, minor and patch versions, or when specifying major and minor versions, only the patch version is allowed to change. If you only specify a major version, then both minor and patch versions are allowed to be upgraded (~1 is thus equivalent to ^1). For example:

[compat]
PkgA = "~1.2.3" # [1.2.3, 1.3.0)
PkgB = "~1.2"   # [1.2.0, 1.3.0)
PkgC = "~1"     # [1.0.0, 2.0.0)
PkgD = "~0.2.3" # [0.2.3, 0.3.0)
PkgE = "~0.0.3" # [0.0.3, 0.0.4)
PkgF = "~0.0"   # [0.0.0, 0.1.0)
PkgG = "~0"     # [0.0.0, 1.0.0)

For all versions with a major version of 0 the tilde and caret specifiers are equivalent.

Equality specifier

Equality can be used to specify exact versions:

[compat]
PkgA = "=1.2.3"           # [1.2.3, 1.2.3]
PkgA = "=0.10.1, =0.10.3" # 0.10.1 or 0.10.3

Inequality specifiers

Inequalities can also be used to specify version ranges:

[compat]
PkgB = ">= 1.2.3" # [1.2.3,  ∞)
PkgC = "≥ 1.2.3"  # [1.2.3,  ∞)
PkgD = "< 1.2.3"  # [0.0.0, 1.2.3) = [0.0.0, 1.2.2]

Hyphen specifiers

Hyphen syntax can also be used to specify version ranges. Make sure that you have a space on both sides of the hyphen.

[compat]
PkgA = "1.2.3 - 4.5.6" # [1.2.3, 4.5.6]
PkgA = "0.2.3 - 4.5.6" # [0.2.3, 4.5.6]

Any unspecified trailing numbers in the first end-point are considered to be zero:

[compat]
PkgA = "1.2 - 4.5.6"   # [1.2.0, 4.5.6]
PkgA = "1 - 4.5.6"     # [1.0.0, 4.5.6]
PkgA = "0.2 - 4.5.6"   # [0.2.0, 4.5.6]
PkgA = "0.2 - 0.5.6"   # [0.2.0, 0.5.6]

Any unspecified trailing numbers in the second end-point will be considered to be wildcards:

[compat]
PkgA = "1.2.3 - 4.5"   # 1.2.3 - 4.5.* = [1.2.3, 4.6.0)
PkgA = "1.2.3 - 4"     # 1.2.3 - 4.*.* = [1.2.3, 5.0.0)
PkgA = "1.2 - 4.5"     # 1.2.0 - 4.5.* = [1.2.0, 4.6.0)
PkgA = "1.2 - 4"       # 1.2.0 - 4.*.* = [1.2.0, 5.0.0)
PkgA = "1 - 4.5"       # 1.0.0 - 4.5.* = [1.0.0, 4.6.0)
PkgA = "1 - 4"         # 1.0.0 - 4.*.* = [1.0.0, 5.0.0)
PkgA = "0.2.3 - 4.5"   # 0.2.3 - 4.5.* = [0.2.3, 4.6.0)
PkgA = "0.2.3 - 4"     # 0.2.3 - 4.*.* = [0.2.3, 5.0.0)
PkgA = "0.2 - 4.5"     # 0.2.0 - 4.5.* = [0.2.0, 4.6.0)
PkgA = "0.2 - 4"       # 0.2.0 - 4.*.* = [0.2.0, 5.0.0)
PkgA = "0.2 - 0.5"     # 0.2.0 - 0.5.* = [0.2.0, 0.6.0)
PkgA = "0.2 - 0"       # 0.2.0 - 0.*.* = [0.2.0, 1.0.0)

Fixing conflicts

Version conflicts were introduced previously with an example of a conflict arising in a package D used by two other packages, B and C. Our analysis of the error message revealed that B is using an outdated version of D. To fix it, the first thing to try is to pkg> dev B so that you can modify B and its compatibility requirements. If you open its Project.toml file in an editor, you would probably notice something like

[compat]
D = "0.1"

Usually the first step is to modify this to something like

[compat]
D = "0.1, 0.2"

This indicates that B is compatible with both versions 0.1 and version 0.2; if you pkg> up this would fix the package error. However, there is one major concern you need to address first: perhaps there was an incompatible change in v0.2 of D that breaks B. Before proceeding further, you should update all packages and then run B's tests, scanning the output of pkg> test B to be sure that v0.2 of D is in fact being used. (It is possible that an additional dependency of D pins it to v0.1, and you wouldn't want to be misled into thinking that you had tested B on the newer version.) If the new version was used and the tests still pass, you can assume that B didn't need any further updating to accommodate v0.2 of D; you can safely submit this change as a pull request to B so that a new release is made. If instead an error is thrown, it indicates that B requires more extensive updates to be compatible with the latest version of D; those updates will need to be completed before it becomes possible to use both A and B simultaneously. You can, though, continue to use them independently of one another.