Comparing versions

Here's a couple of functions for comparing versions.

version_less_than() {
  printf '%s\n%s' "$1" "$2" | sort --version-sort --check
}

version_greater_than() {
  ! version_less_than "$1" "$2"
}

• --version-sort (shorthand -V) sorts based on version numbers.

• --check (shorthand -C) make sort check for sorted input instead of sorting.

Example usage:

MY_VERSION=1.2.3
if version_less_than "$MY_VERSION" 4.3.0; then
  : # do something
fi

Source: man sort