Formal definition for Rule UID definition settings: full semantic version or not?

[MatteoRagni]

The discussion started from another PR in the OpenDRIVE checker repo. We need to load the definition setting and compare with the applicable version. Using reduced version will create a disalignment in meaning, which should be addressed.

I'm quoting the core of the discussion below:

Using RuleType we already make sure that the version is in format (\d+)(\.\d+)?(\.\d+)? (not exactly, just for the sake of the comment), thus we can easily parse with:

r = RuleType(*args)
semver.VersionInfo(*r.definition_settings.split("."))

This has a severe limitation: 1.7 is interpreted as 1.7.0. And this kind of parse, while correct from a semantic version point of view, it is incorrect from a semver specification point of view, where the comparison operator has an effect on the intended operation:

• <2 is actually the requirement for <=1.[max].[max]
• >2 is actually the requirement for >=3.0.0

The version in the uid is 1.7. It is referring to 1.7.0 or 1.7.[max]. There are not enough information in the uid itself to know, a convention shall be enforced.

So the discussion really pivotes on:

• if ASAM enforces semver for all the standards than we can enforce the full semantic versioning in rule uid
• otherwise we can forcibly set the convention that elision means minimum, thus 1.7 in uid is 1.7.0

I want to raise the question to @pmai or @AsamDiegoSanchez.

Originally posted by @MatteoRagni in asam-ev/qc-opendrive#118 (comment)

[AsamDiegoSanchez]

From ASAM side, we must support the use of major.minor.patch, so we would tend to use the full semantic versioning in rule uid if posible.