diff --git a/docs/examples/version-check.pl b/docs/examples/version-check.pl
index 932d154bdb..bc065770bc 100755
--- a/docs/examples/version-check.pl
+++ b/docs/examples/version-check.pl
@@ -38,6 +38,9 @@
 #    version-check.pl [source file]
 #
 
+use strict;
+use warnings;
+
 open(S, "<../libcurl/symbols-in-versions") || die;
 
 my %doc;
@@ -64,7 +67,7 @@ sub age {
     my ($ver)=@_;
 
     my @s=split(/\./, $ver);
-    return $s[0]*10000+$s[1]*100+$s[2];
+    return $s[0]*10000+$s[1]*100+($s[2] || 0);
 }
 
 my %used;