Weird version range behavior when using includePrerelease: true

[mxlle]

I want to define a version range that matches all versions of a certain major, including any prereleases of this major.

I tried using just "2" or "2.x.x" and adding the includePrerelease: true option to all function calls, however then I get weird behavior at the corner cases:

semver.satisfies("2.0.0-pre.0", "2.x.x", {includePrerelease: true}); // false, I expected true
semver.satisfies("2.1.0-pre.0", "2.x.x", {includePrerelease: true}); // true
semver.satisfies("3.0.0-pre.0", "2.x.x", {includePrerelease: true}); // true, I expected false

I know that this behavior matches the definition of ^1.x := >=1.0.0 <2.0.0
However I think the behavior should be altered in case of the includePrerelease flag.

It's relevant for the following situation:

• I implement a program against the interface of version 2.x.x.
• I want to always get the newest version of this interface, also prereleases, so I use the includePrerelease flag.
• However as soon as there is an 3.0.0-pre, this will break my interface because it's treated as 2.x.x

[isaacs]

Ah, yeah. That is a legit bug, completely violates the expectation. 1.x should probably be >=1.0.0-0 <2.0.0-0 if includePrereleases is set.

[isaacs]

Fixed in 6.1.3. Thanks for the report!

[mxlle]

Thank you for fixing the issue this quickly! Now I get the expected result 👍

[sarnesjo]

The behavior of ~ and ^ now appears to be inconsistent; do they need to be updated as well?

See, for example, the "unlocked prerelease range tests" test.

[mbargiel]

Indeed, I'm running into the same issue with ^  and ~.

Using node-semver@6.3.0 I'm seeing the following inconsistency with ~:

> semver.satisfies('1.0.1-beta', '~1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
true
> semver.satisfies('1.1.0-beta', '~1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
true # expected false!
> semver.satisfies('2.0.0-beta', '~1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
false

and with ^:

> semver.satisfies('1.0.1-beta', '^1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
true
> semver.satisfies('1.1.0-beta', '^1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
true
> semver.satisfies('2.0.0-beta', '^1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
true # expected false!

Straight out >= seems fine however.

> semver.satisfies('1.0.1-beta', '>=1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
true
> semver.satisfies('1.1.0-beta', '>=1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
true
> semver.satisfies('2.0.0-beta', '>=1.0.0', { includePrerelease: true })
true

Should I reopen this Issue or open a new one?

[mbargiel]

A workaround is to manually unwrap the ^  and ~, e.g.

> semver.satisfies('1.1.0-beta', '>=1.0.0 <1.1.0-0', { includePrerelease: true })
false # as expected