Some packages have NULL versions

[wch]

For example:
http://crandb.r-pkg.org/subplex/all
http://crandb.r-pkg.org/lme/all

[gaborcsardi]

Yeah, these have free text version numbers, like 3.0b8a-2 (1999/06/07) and I am not sure how to parse and sort them.

[maelle]

no way to keep the original string?

[gaborcsardi]

we rely on being able to order them, so this would require some work

[maelle]

what I don't understand, because I haven't looked at the source enough, is why one can't just order by date?

[gaborcsardi]

dates are often hard to come by for old packages.

[maelle]

could there be a field for keeping the original version no matter its format, version_string?

[gaborcsardi]

Seems like the database is better now, and at least for these packages, I don't see any null versions.