Some extensions to acceptable specs

[autopulated]

Allow 'any version' spec *, allow versions as specs (equivalent to ==), and allow single equals (equivalent to ==).

These are pragmatic changes to make it easier to work with version specifications that use "*" to mean any version, and "1.2.3" or "=1.2.3" to mean "==1.2.3".

[autopulated]

What's the likelihood of merging this?

[rbarrois]

Hi @autopulated !

The idea is interesting, but I've got a couple of questions:

• the "* for any" is a good idea, I'll add it.
• For the = equivalent to ==, this could be done directly with Spec, or performed through a Spec.coerce(...) method
• For the 0.1.0 means ==0.1.0, I don't want to add it directly to Spec("0.1.0"), as that would cause some unneeded confusion with Version. I don't see a problem adding it to Spec.coerce(), though.

Would using Spec.parse(..., coerce=True) or Spec.coerce("=1.2.0") work with the API you'd expect to use in your use case?

[autopulated]

I actually want a "strict" specification that accepts them – so coerce doesn't work for me, but I could achieve everything apart from * using a subclass that just preprocesses the strings in init, so no pressure to merge the other stuff.

[rbarrois]

I've just added the support for '*', I'll let you handle the other versions in your subclass.

[autopulated]

Cool, that works.