Best practices for versioning project after dependency upgrade

Question

Say, my project have dependency N with version 1.0.0. Then something have changed, and I should depend on newer version - let it be 1.0.1.

OK, I'm incrementing dependency version, nothing else changes in my code. It looks like I should increment my own projects' version, but how exactly I should increment?

Should I increment only third number (so-called revision), or best practices here are more complicated. For example, may be, if we are changing projects' dependency minor value, we should do the same thing in the project itself?

Answer 1

I'm not aware of any best practices for this situation, so here's my take:

An updated dependency should be reflected in your version; let's take the example of MAJOR.MINOR.REVISION numbering scheme.

Any version change in a dependency should at least increment your REVISION number, but a bigger change, such as a MAJOR or MINOR change in the dependency version, should cause you to increment your MINOR version.

Although MAJOR version changes in dependencies often come with API changes, I wouldn't increment your own MAJOR version unless you've made more changes than just updating to a new MAJOR version of a dependency.

Answer 2

If you're only updating the dependency, that's a minor revision (barely any change to your code) so I would only update the third numeral. The second numeral is usually reserved for major updates (big bug fixed, new features, balance issues, etc) and the first one for a completely new version of the software.