Tilde/Caret versioning range and specifying the stability like ^x.y.*-dev

[Alireza Farhanian]

Hello there,
I'm using a private registry named Nexus for my company's internal packages. The scenario is I store different package stability for each version. I.e. for v1.0.0 I have 1.0.0, 1.0.0-rc, and 1.0.0-dev. Additionally, the repository type I have used for this private registry is set as composer. Therefore, I don't have any of my Git tags and I have to handle the versions by packages names and the URLs.

Here is how I store packages and its works well:

composer archive --format="zip" --file=user-module
curl --user user:pass --upload-file "user-module.zip" https://nexus.domain.com/repository/composer-local/packages/upload/internalvendor/user-module/1.0.0-dev

Here is a detailed information of how my versions are.

>>> composer show internalvendor/user-module -a
name     : internalvendor/user-module
descrip. : Authentication and user management module.
keywords : 
versions : 1.0.0.3102-rc, * 1.0.0, 1.0.0-rc, 1.0.0-dev, 1.0.1-dev, 1.2.0-dev
type     : laravel-module
license  : other
homepage : 
source   : []  
dist     : [zip] https://nexus.domain.com/repository/composer-local/internalvendor/user-module/1.0.0/internalvendor-user-module-1.0.0.zip f7c5226ad2531454debf07d56c6144a64c433301
path     : /var/www/html/modules/User
names    : internalvendor/user-module

autoload
psr-4
Modules\User\ => .

requires
laravel/sanctum ^2.15
internalvendor/core-module 1.0.0
internalvendor/product-module 1.0.0

So the question is:

How can I specify the version range to install the latest version of each package with the desired stability ?
I want something like this:

composer require internalvendor/user-module:^1.0-dev
that is expected to install the latest version of package existed on the repository:
1.2.0-dev
or if 1.2.0-dev hadn't existed, install: 1.0.1-dev
And this must perform the same for `-rc` prefixes.

[Dan Wallis]

This page: https://getcomposer.org/doc/articles/versions.md#stability-constraints
talks about using @dev to adjust the stability constraint for an individual package. You can also set minimum-stability as described here: https://getcomposer.org/doc/04-schema.md#minimum-stability

[Alireza Farhanian]

This page: https://getcomposer.org/doc/articles/versions.md#stability-constraints talks about using @dev to adjust the stability constraint for an individual package. You can also set minimum-stability as described here: https://getcomposer.org/doc/04-schema.md#minimum-stability

Thanks for your response @fredden
I tried setting minimum-stability: dev in root 'composer.json' where I do require those internal packages. I reckon the point is in what convention the packages are stored on the registry. When I publish the packages via the above URL, how should it be structured ?
registry-url/internalvendor/user-module/1.0.0@dev (dev or even rc),
registry-url/internalvendor/user-module/1.0.0-dev,
registry-url/internalvendor/user-module/dev-1.0.0, etc.
Which one is the most suitable ? If it's helpful, how does Packagist.org store the packages itself ?

EDITED:

The issue appears when I run:

composer require internalvendor/user-module:^1.0-dev

The command above finds and picks the latest version of package (let's say 1.2.0), but totally ignores -dev prefix and installs the stable version despite specifying the package's to be '-dev' version.
What is expected to be installed is the version 1.2.0-dev.
It's also worth mentioning that it works when the version is strictly specified as '1.0.1-dev'. However, it doesn't work with caret or tilde versioning.

[Alireza Farhanian]

@Seldaek Don't you have any idea ? Seems to be a weird one.

[Dan Wallis]

@arfar-x I can see that you have closed this issue. Are we to understand that you have found all the answers you were seeking? Please can you post some details here or a link to the documentation where you found the answers? This will help others who might be having a similar issue.

Or perhaps this was closed by mistake, and the issue is not yet solved?

[Alireza Farhanian]

Please can you post some details

The issue is not resolved yet. What details should I provide exactly ? I've already provided information I thought it would be useful.