Allow patch updates to dependencies?

[ChaseGuru]

I was getting an error when trying to add:

pod 'FirebaseFirestore', :git => 'https://github.com/invertase/firestore-ios-sdk-frameworks.git', :tag => '11.4.0'

When it works fine with my Podfile locking - Firebase/Firestore (11.4.0): and - Firebase/Firestore (11.4.0):.

My iOS minimum deployment target is 13.0
Podfile:

platform :ios, '13.0'

...

And every instance of deployment target in the pbx project is:
IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET = 13.0;

But I get this error doing a pod install:

firebase_crashlytics: Using Firebase SDK version '11.4.0' defined in 'firebase_core'
[!] CocoaPods could not find compatible versions for pod "FirebaseCoreExtension":
  In snapshot (Podfile.lock):
    FirebaseCoreExtension (= 11.4.1, ~> 11.4)

  In Podfile:
    FirebaseCoreExtension (= 11.0.0)

Specs satisfying the `FirebaseCoreExtension (= 11.0.0), FirebaseCoreExtension (= 11.4.1, ~> 11.4)` dependency were found, but they required a higher minimum deployment target.

I swear that was happening with pod update or when I removed the podfile.lock alike, and it was throwing me off because it sounds like it's saying it wants me to upgrade my deployment target for iOS.

Though, if I manually specify FirebaseCoreExtension 11.4.0, it works.

  pod 'FirebaseCoreExtension', '11.4.0'
  pod 'FirebaseFirestore', :git => 'https://github.com/invertase/firestore-ios-sdk-frameworks.git', :tag => '11.4.0'

But resetting, it's now working if I pod update or rm Podfile.lock. I'm not sure what changed, BUT at this point it seems like the error is just because I had resolved 11.4.1 and your package requires 11.4.0 specifically.

It still seems like a bad cocoapods error, i would expect something like:

In compatible requirements `FirebaseCoreExtension (= 11.4.1, ~> 11.4), FirebaseCoreExtension (= 11.4.0)`

but maybe this is the typical error 🤷

Request:
So perhaps some of this was me being dumb somehow and not doing pod update/removing the Pod lock like I thought, though it also seems like it may be good for the package to be allowing patch updates:

In addition to the logic operators CocoaPods has an optimistic operator ~>:

'~> 0.1.2' Version 0.1.2 and the versions up to 0.2, not including 0.2 and higher

Since I suspect your package isn't actually incompatible with for example 11.4.1. So perhaps:

  s.dependency 'FirebaseCore', firebase_firestore_version
  s.dependency 'FirebaseCoreExtension', firebase_firestore_version
  s.dependency 'FirebaseFirestoreInternalBinary', firebase_firestore_version
  s.dependency 'FirebaseSharedSwift', firebase_firestore_version

Should be something like:

  s.dependency 'FirebaseCore', "~> #{firebase_firestore_version}"
  s.dependency 'FirebaseCoreExtension', "~> #{firebase_firestore_version}"
  s.dependency 'FirebaseFirestoreInternalBinary', "~> #{firebase_firestore_version}"
  s.dependency 'FirebaseSharedSwift', "~> #{firebase_firestore_version}"

[mikehardy]

We've had problems with optimistic locking letting versions slip and creating unexpected problems with transitives breaking builds, so they're exact in purpose. I thought they would be better as well but in practice, over a long enough time scale, it has caused us problems

[mikehardy]

Here is the problem I mention, for posterity - which was actually an incompatibility with an untested patch release:

firebase/flutterfire#13527