How to pass a version number as an integer in JavaScript

Question

How to pass a long version number as an integer in Javascript?

I am writing a unit test in Jasmine and I want to pass an application version number to assert against, however the tests fail when I try to pass an integer such as 4.0.2.

It seems integers may not have more than one decimal. How to work around this? Must you do some kind of conversion?

`4.0.2` is not an integer, pass it as string. Also we don't manipulate build number — Satpal, May 06 '16 at 07:19
Use Strings instead..or convert it to 402 and pass as integer. — smali, May 06 '16 at 07:21
Use it as a string or parse it to take major, minor and revision parts of it as integer values. — Juan Sánchez, May 06 '16 at 07:21
`'4.0.2'.split('.').map(function(n) { return +n; })` returns [4, 0, 2] if you need to do a greater-than comparison or something — doug65536, May 06 '16 at 07:22

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:31

As pointed by comments, 4.0.2 is not an integer...
Anyway, following this: How to do version numbers?, version numbers are usually more that a simple integer.

What is usually done is to have a structure to hold version number:

var currentVersion = {
  major : 4,
  minor: 0,
  release: 2,
  // build : undefined 
};

This can be built from a string "4.0.2" using a split function:

(function(outputVersion, inputString) {
  "use strict";

  var splitted = myString.split('.');
  outputVersion.major = splitted.length > 0 ? splitted[0]: undefined;
  outputVersion.minor = splitted.length > 1 ? splitted[1]: undefined;
  // so on for other properties
}(window.applicationVersion, myString));

Please note that above code is just a sample, not the way it should be done, it all depends on your application code. In particular, you might want to compare versions together, which means you will need comparison functions based on lexicographic order: How to compare software version number using js? (only number)

How to pass a version number as an integer in JavaScript

1 Answers1