How to compare software versions using SQL Server?

Question

When trying to compare software versions 5.12 to 5.8, version 5.12 is newer, however mathematically 5.12 is less than 5.8. How would I compare the two versions so that a new

Answer 1

I'll give you the most shortest answer of this.

with cte as (
    select  7.11 as ver
    union all
    select 7.6
)

select top 1 ver from cte
      order by parsename(ver, 2), parsename(cast(ver as float), 1)