A pre-release is incorrectly returned among the final releases

[gdubicki]

Describe the bug

pip install package==nonexistentversion is a popular workaround to get a list of final releases of a package.

But now for the pip package itself, the output contains v. 21.1b1, which is a pre-release:

$ pip install pip==nonexistentversion (...) ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pip==nonexistentversion (from versions: 0.2, 0.2.1, 0.3, 0.3.1, 0.4, 0.5, 0.5.1, 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.6.2, 0.6.3, 0.7, 0.7.1, 0.7.2, 0.8, 0.8.1, 0.8.2, 0.8.3, 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, 1.3, 1.3.1, 1.4, 1.4.1, 1.5, 1.5.1, 1.5.2, 1.5.3, 1.5.4, 1.5.5, 1.5.6, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.0.5, 6.0.6, 6.0.7, 6.0.8, 6.1.0, 6.1.1, 7.0.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 7.1.0, 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 8.0.0, 8.0.1, 8.0.2, 8.0.3, 8.1.0, 8.1.1, 8.1.2, 9.0.0, 9.0.1, 9.0.2, 9.0.3, 10.0.0b1, 10.0.0b2, 10.0.0, 10.0.1, 18.0, 18.1, 19.0, 19.0.1, 19.0.2, 19.0.3, 19.1, 19.1.1, 19.2, 19.2.1, 19.2.2, 19.2.3, 19.3, 19.3.1, 20.0, 20.0.1, 20.0.2, 20.1b1, 20.1, 20.1.1, 20.2b1, 20.2, 20.2.1, 20.2.2, 20.2.3, 20.2.4, 20.3b1, 20.3, 20.3.1, 20.3.2, 20.3.3, 20.3.4, 21.0, 21.0.1, 21.1, 21.1.1, 21.1.2, 21.1.3, 21.2, 21.2.1, 21.2.2, 21.2.3, 21.2.4, 21.3, 21.3.1, 22.0, 22.0.1, 22.0.2, 22.0.3, 22.0.4, 22.1b1) ERROR: No matching distribution found for pip==nonexistentversion

Expected behavior

The output of the command above should not contain the 22.1b1 entry.

To Reproduce

Just run the command given above.

My Platform

pip 22.0.4 on various platforms, including macOS and Linux.

[gdubicki]

Surprisingly, the modern pip index versions command is NOT affected by the issue:

$ pip index versions pip
WARNING: pip index is currently an experimental command. It may be removed/changed in a future release without prior warning.
pip (22.0.4)
Available versions: 22.0.4, 22.0.3, 22.0.2, 22.0.1, 22.0, 21.3.1, 21.3, 21.2.4, 21.2.3, 21.2.2, 21.2.1, 21.2, 21.1.3, 21.1.2, 21.1.1, 21.1, 21.0.1, 21.0, 20.3.4, 20.3.3, 20.3.2, 20.3.1, 20.3, 20.2.4, 20.2.3, 20.2.2, 20.2.1, 20.2, 20.1.1, 20.1, 20.0.2, 20.0.1, 20.0, 19.3.1, 19.3, 19.2.3, 19.2.2, 19.2.1, 19.2, 19.1.1, 19.1, 19.0.3, 19.0.2, 19.0.1, 19.0, 18.1, 18.0, 10.0.1, 10.0.0, 9.0.3, 9.0.2, 9.0.1, 9.0.0, 8.1.2, 8.1.1, 8.1.0, 8.0.3, 8.0.2, 8.0.1, 8.0.0, 7.1.2, 7.1.1, 7.1.0, 7.0.3, 7.0.2, 7.0.1, 7.0.0, 6.1.1, 6.1.0, 6.0.8, 6.0.7, 6.0.6, 6.0.5, 6.0.4, 6.0.3, 6.0.2, 6.0.1, 6.0, 1.5.6, 1.5.5, 1.5.4, 1.5.3, 1.5.2, 1.5.1, 1.5, 1.4.1, 1.4, 1.3.1, 1.3, 1.2.1, 1.2, 1.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.1, 1.0, 0.8.3, 0.8.2, 0.8.1, 0.8, 0.7.2, 0.7.1, 0.7, 0.6.3, 0.6.2, 0.6.1, 0.6, 0.5.1, 0.5, 0.4, 0.3.1, 0.3, 0.2.1, 0.2
  INSTALLED: 22.0.4
  LATEST:    22.0.4

[di]

PyPI makes no distinction about the pre vs non-pre releases aside from the version number used, so I'm not sure this is a PyPI issue at all. Transferring this to pypa/pip instead...

[pfmoore]

See my comment here. This is not a supported way of "getting a list of final releases of a package".

Closing as invalid.

[gdubicki]

Thanks @di and @pfmoore. I realized that this is how it has always worked, sorry for the noise.