Postfixing `+` in `nextflow.version.matches()` is not working properly

[HarryHung]

Bug report

Expected behavior and actual behavior

The following two code blocks should work the same (i.e. it should not go inside of the if block) if the Nextflow executable is at 23.10 or newer.

Version 1

nextflowMinVersion = '23.10'
if( !nextflow.version.matches("${nextflowMinVersion}+") ) {
    log.error("Requires Nextflow version ${nextflowMinVersion} or greater -- You are running version $nextflow.version") 
    System.exit(1)
}

Version 2

nextflowMinVersion = '23.10'
if( !nextflow.version.matches(">=${nextflowMinVersion}") ) {
    log.error("Requires Nextflow version ${nextflowMinVersion} or greater -- You are running version $nextflow.version") 
    System.exit(1)
}

In 23.xx, both versions work fine for me. But after I have upgraded the executable to 24.04.1, version 1 no longer works properly and go into the if block.

Steps to reproduce the problem

With the following content in test.nf

nextflowMinVersion = '23.10' 
if( !nextflow.version.matches("${nextflowMinVersion}+") ) {
    log.error("The pipeline requires Nextflow version ${nextflowMinVersion} or greater -- You are running version $nextflow.version") 
    System.exit(1)
}

println("Done")

By running ./nextflow run test.nf with...

• 23.10.1 executable: Print Done
• 24.04.1 executable: Print the error message

Program output

As mentioned above

Environment

• Nextflow version: 24.04.1
• Java version: OpenJDK 19.0.2
• Operating system: Ubuntu 22.04.4
• Bash version: zsh 5.8.1 (x86_64-ubuntu-linux-gnu)

[bentsherman]

The root cause seems to be when the major version is greater but the minor version isn't. I'm surprised this bug wasn't noticed before! Looking into a patch

[bentsherman]

@pditommaso now I'm confused about the meaning of + postfix. I assumed it was equivalent to >= prefix but looking at the test cases there are some slight differences:

        '1.2'       | '1.2.+'       | true
        '1.3'       | '1.2.+'       | false // ???
        '2.3.1b'    | '2.3.+'       | true
        '2.4'       | '2.3.+'       | false // ???
        '1.2'       | '1.+'         | true

Apparently the plus works like >= except when you do .+, then it behaves somewhat differently. Is there some standard that we are following here? I know the version is supposed to be a semantic version but I don't see anything in that standard for specific comparison operators like +, only how to compare versions in general.

[pditommaso]

1.2.+ should allow 1.2.1, 1.2.2 but not 1.3.x

[HarryHung]

Doc mentions

postfixed with the + operator to specify a minimum version requirement

Shouldn't 1.2.+ allows 1.3.x as well?

[pditommaso]

1.2.+ != 1.2+ 😈

[bentsherman]

Then this behavior needs to be documented. @HarryHung I think the + postfix is behaving as intended, so you should just use >= if you only need a minimum requirement

[HarryHung]

Sure can do, but if this is the intended behaviour, I would suggest updating the docuementation:

postfixed with the + operator to specify a minimum version requirement. For example:

if( !nextflow.version.matches('21.04+') ) {
    println "This workflow requires Nextflow version 21.04 or greater -- You are running version $nextflow.version"
    exit 1
}

Because it seems both the wordings and the example do not align well with its intended behaviour?

Thanks!