Version numbering beyond major and minor

Question

I am not a SharePoint designer, but am gathering data exported from it. I am designing a database table to hold periodic data-dumps posted from SharePoint, including the following fields:

1. Document ID
2. Version number
3. Modified date

From my research, I see that SharePoint currently has major and minor version numbering of documents (1.0, 1.1 ...).

For the purpose of selecting the best data type for my database field, can anyone provide any insight as to whether versioning functionality will remain the same in future versions, or become any more sophisticated, e.g.

• 1a, 1b, 1c
• 1.0.0.1, 1.0.0.2

Is it even possible to create the above versioning (in the designer) to use instead of the default major/minor approach?

I appreciate this is an open question, but I've searched extensively today and have gained very little to help make an informed decision.

Answer 1

The versioning pattern have had its current implementation for at least 10 years since SharePoint 2007, if not longer. It's unlikely that the version pattern would change in the near future, especially since MS want customers to implement newer versions of SharePoint.

Even if it's not recommended, you can always implement your own versioning pattern in a site column, if you like. But I'm not sure how useful it would be to move away from minor/major versioning?!

Just remember that there's no limit to the minor version. You can have a minor version which is 2.867, even if it's rare.