In the rpmvercmp() function in tree/pkg.c, I believe that the condition on line 1313 never evaluates to true, effectively the relevant branch is never reached.

1. The while loop on l1281 ensures that both 'one' and 'two' are alphanumeric:

    while (*one && *two) {
	while (*one && !isalnum((guchar)*one)) one++;
	while (*two && !isalnum((guchar)*two)) two++;

	/* If we ran to the end of either, we are finished with the loop */
	if (!(*one && *two)) break;

2. The code block starting on l1294 always increases str1 at least by one. The initial condition for 'if' is the same as the condition in first 'while' iteration. Effectively, the first while always evaluates to true and str1 is always incremented.

	if (isdigit((guchar)*str1)) {
	    while (*str1 && isdigit((guchar)*str1)) str1++;
	    while (*str2 && isdigit((guchar)*str2)) str2++;
	    isnum = 1;
	} else {
	    while (*str1 && isalpha((guchar)*str1)) str1++;

3. Thus, it is impossible for the condition on l1313 to be true, since str1 being always incremented, it can no longer be equal to one.

	if (one == str1) return -1;	/* arbitrary */