Alpine Package Keeper (APK) Versioning

Identifier

apk

References

• https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Package_policies
• https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_Package_Keeper#Package_pinning

Ranges/Constraints

❌ No range support.

Description

Alpine Package Keeper (APK) versioning is used for packages served from APK repositories, such as the official Alpine Linux repositories or the Wolfi APK package repository

This implementation follows the Alpine Linux Package versions for version formatting.

Versions are similar to other Linux distributions, e.g. 3.2.1-r0

• The first segment follows semantic versioning
• Alpha, release candidates (_rc2), etc are prefixed with an underscore, not a hyphen.
• Subsequent package versions are -r0, -r1, and so on; the number is from $pkgver.
• Subsequent package fixes are _p0, _p1 (typically seen if not using major.minor.patch, e.g. 6.5_p20250503-r0)

Version Format Examples

• 2.39.0-r0 - Standard version with release number
• 2.39.0_rc1-r0 - Release candidate (pre-release)
• 6.5_p20250503-r0 - Package fix with date-based patch
• 2.39.0~beta-r0 - Beta pre-release

Pre-release Handling

• _rc patterns (e.g., _rc1, _rc2) are treated as pre-release identifiers
• _p patterns (e.g., _p20250503) are treated as part of the version number
• ~ patterns (e.g., ~beta) are treated as pre-release identifiers

Ranges are not supported by this versioning.

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