Dear Laurent, many thanks to yourself and others for your most noble efforts.

But I do believe the most effective manner is : Debian::Dpkg::Version

I did not know the right question to ask the Oracle of CPAN.

I am an humble bookseller, not an enlightened programmer.

So I frequently have found need to Perl to manage my database scripts, and found it a wunderful tool, as well as an iinstructive one.

The project would surely be a Perl effort. Actually i know it better than AWK!

What is there not to love about it, It has everything, inclusing GOTO. The passage of time has diminished my grief over line numbers.