Inconsistency in output of versions for 'show' command

[miguelrs]

TL;DR: See fix needed in bold in #7945 (comment)

My composer.json:

{
    "name": "miguelr/test",
    "require": {
        "symfony/symfony": "~2.8.0",
        "doctrine/doctrine-migrations-bundle": "@dev"
    }
}

Output of composer diagnose is all OK.

When I run this command:

composer show -D -o doctrine/doctrine-migrations-bundle

I get the following output, with 1.3.x-dev as version and dev-master as latest:

name     : doctrine/doctrine-migrations-bundle
descrip. : Symfony DoctrineMigrationsBundle
keywords : dbal, migrations, schema
versions : * 1.3.x-dev
latest   : dev-master
...

However, when I run this command:

composer show -D -o

I get the following output, with 1.3.x-dev 49fa399 as version and dev-master 40e9ac0 as latest version:

doctrine/doctrine-migrations-bundle 1.3.x-dev 49fa399 dev-master 40e9ac0 Symfony DoctrineMigrationsBundle
...

I inspected the code a little bit, and I think the problem is for the first output it's using getPrettyVersion() for the current and for the latest version:

composer/src/Composer/Command/ShowCommand.php

Line 654 in 19ba2ed

$installedVersion = $package->getPrettyVersion();

composer/src/Composer/Command/ShowCommand.php

Line 586 in 19ba2ed

$io->write('<info>latest</info> : <'.$style.'>' . $latestPackage->getPrettyVersion() . '</'.$style.'>');

However, for the second output it's using getFullPrettyVersion() for the current and for the latest version:

composer/src/Composer/Command/ShowCommand.php

Line 398 in 19ba2ed

$packageViewData['version'] = $package->getFullPrettyVersion();

composer/src/Composer/Command/ShowCommand.php

Line 402 in 19ba2ed

$packageViewData['latest'] = $latestPackage->getFullPrettyVersion();

Is there a reason for this difference? Couldn't it use getPrettyVersion() in both cases?

---

PS: FYI this bothers me because I was writing a test composer plugin where I was parsing the output of show -D -o -f json, and when I want to use the versions to find the packages with:

RepositoryManager:findPackage($data['name'], $data['version'])

it fails to parse the constraint with:

Could not parse version constraint 49fa399: Invalid version string "49fa399"

[alcohol]

I do not know if there is a reason for this inconsistency. It does not seem intentional to me, but I could be mistaken.

[miguelrs]

👍 I did a bit of research and it looks like getPrettyVersion was used in both cases in the past, but it got changed as part of these commits:

• Change in output of version: f634c69
• Change in output of latest: 54d86eb

[miguelrs]

Also, as for the last bit of the initial message, is that another issue actually, or is that expected?
i.e., should RepositoryManager:findPackage work fine when passing something like dev-master 40e9ac0 as version, or should it throw an exception as it's doing atm?

[alcohol]

Honestly we do not support using Composer as a library. So I'll refrain from commenting on that.

[miguelrs]

👌 pity, because that makes it more difficult to write plugins...

Anyway, as for the inconsistency in the output then - do you think it makes sense to open a PR? or wait for more comments? or it's just something nobody cares about? 😅

[alcohol]

Yeah I can understand that it is a pity. But the amount of questions we would open ourselves up to would just explode exponentially. We already have a hard time keeping up with all the issues and pull requests we receive just for basic Composer usage.

@Seldaek do you know if there is a particular reason we use different output formats?

@miguelrs I am going to assume for now that there is no reason, so feel free to submit a pull request that makes the output consistent at least (I'd favor the more detailed output -- I am sure you can reduce it to the bare minimum that you need).

[Seldaek]

IMO using getFullPrettyVersion makes sense in the outdated listing, because you need to see clearly that there is a commit difference between current and latest in case you are on dev-master already..

In the regular composer show output for a single package, the versions lists all available versions in case of -a, and in that case having getFullPrettyVersion would be very messy IMO as a single version could result in two items in the versions list..

What I see though is that the json format probably should use getPrettyVersion instead of the getFullPrettyVersion, and it possibly should include the full source reference as well for completeness.. but I am not sure how easy a fix that is.

[miguelrs]

👌 thanks for the update - I'll try to take a look and make a PR if possible