| A utility function for parsing dot-delimited stings as a version 
  tuple. # test some simple version formats >>> version = '1' 
  >>> getVersionTupleFromString(version) (1, 0, 0) >>> 
  version = '1.0' >>> getVersionTupleFromString(version) (1, 0, 0)
  >>> version = '1.0.0' >>> 
  getVersionTupleFromString(version) (1, 0, 0) >>> version = 
  '1.0.2' >>> getVersionTupleFromString(version) (1, 0, 2) # here's one for Fedora >>> version = '2.6.17-1.2174_FC5' 
  >>> getVersionTupleFromString(version) (2, 6, 17) # here's a bizzare one >>> version = '1a.23zzX.abs' 
  >>> getVersionTupleFromString(version) (1, 23, 0)# checks against ints and floats being passed instead of strings 
  >>> version = 1 >>> getVersionTupleFromString(version) 
  (1, 0, 0) >>> version = 1.0 >>> 
  getVersionTupleFromString(version) (1, 0, 0) >>> version = 0 
  >>> getVersionTupleFromString(version) (0, 0, 0) >>> 
  version = 'a.1.2' >>> getVersionTupleFromString(version) (0, 1, 
  2) >>> version = '' >>> 
  getVersionTupleFromString(version) (0, 0, 0) 
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