* [PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: Use standard versioning suffix
@ 2025-09-05 12:14 Jonas Rebmann
2025-09-05 12:19 ` brian m. carlson
2025-09-05 12:32 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
0 siblings, 2 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: Jonas Rebmann @ 2025-09-05 12:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: git; +Cc: gitster, Patrick Steinhardt, kernel, Jonas Rebmann
In snapshot builds of git, git-version uses a modified variant of the
git-describe output, e.g. 2.51.0.178.g2462961280 instead of
2.51.0-178-g2462961280 for seemingly historical reasons.
This is not semver compliant which makes the output harder to parse in
tooling such as b4, which currently errors out when using a snapshot
build of git.
For snapshot builds, use as version string the unmodified git-describe
output with only the leading v stripped from the tag.
Fixes: 5c7d3c9507f7 ("Allow building of RPM from interim snapshot.")
Signed-off-by: Jonas Rebmann <jre@pengutronix•de>
---
GIT-VERSION-GEN | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/GIT-VERSION-GEN b/GIT-VERSION-GEN
index b16db85e77..99e04588f3 100755
--- a/GIT-VERSION-GEN
+++ b/GIT-VERSION-GEN
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ then
*$LF*) (exit 1) ;;
esac
then
- VN=$(echo "$VN" | sed -e 's/-/./g');
+ : # use VN as set by git describe
else
VN="$DEF_VER"
fi
---
base-commit: 2462961280690837670d997bde64bd4ebf8ae66d
change-id: 20250905-semver-2e9a9a9c77ef
Best regards,
--
Jonas Rebmann <jre@pengutronix•de>
^ permalink raw reply related [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread* Re: [PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: Use standard versioning suffix
2025-09-05 12:14 [PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: Use standard versioning suffix Jonas Rebmann
@ 2025-09-05 12:19 ` brian m. carlson
2025-09-05 13:43 ` Jonas Rebmann
2025-09-05 15:19 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-09-05 12:32 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
1 sibling, 2 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: brian m. carlson @ 2025-09-05 12:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jonas Rebmann; +Cc: git, gitster, Patrick Steinhardt, kernel
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On 2025-09-05 at 12:14:38, Jonas Rebmann wrote:
> In snapshot builds of git, git-version uses a modified variant of the
> git-describe output, e.g. 2.51.0.178.g2462961280 instead of
> 2.51.0-178-g2462961280 for seemingly historical reasons.
>
> This is not semver compliant which makes the output harder to parse in
> tooling such as b4, which currently errors out when using a snapshot
> build of git.
Git doesn't follow SemVer. We make breaking and incompatible changes
without bumping the major version all the time, so it doesn't make sense
to say that we should follow SemVer for version numbers.
I would say that since Git has had this version number format for a long
time, b4, which is much newer and should be designed to work with Git,
should gracefully handle the Git version number rather than have Git
conform to b4.
--
brian m. carlson (they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: [PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: Use standard versioning suffix
2025-09-05 12:19 ` brian m. carlson
@ 2025-09-05 13:43 ` Jonas Rebmann
2025-09-05 15:19 ` Junio C Hamano
1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: Jonas Rebmann @ 2025-09-05 13:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: brian m. carlson, git, gitster, Patrick Steinhardt, kernel
On 2025-09-05 14:19, brian m. carlson wrote:
> Git doesn't follow SemVer. We make breaking and incompatible changes
> without bumping the major version all the time, so it doesn't make sense
> to say that we should follow SemVer for version numbers.
I meant the lexical format of semver, rather than its semantics, and the
way that snapshot-version suffixes are separated in particular. The
output of git-describe already aligns with the semver syntax so it seems
reasonable to expect that `git version` of a snapshot build would follow
the same syntax, which has become quite common, and for which parsers
are ubiquitous.
The change in 2006 (commit 5c7d3c9507f7) aimed to make versions
monotonic for RPM packaging but the resulting format doesn't seem to
conform to a known version string format, and not to today's
RPM-packaging guidelines either looking at [1].
> I would say that since Git has had this version number format for a long
> time, b4, which is much newer and should be designed to work with Git,
> should gracefully handle the Git version number rather than have Git
> conform to b4.
Is this really Git's version format, or just how git-version happens to
print in snapshot builds? Is this format used or depended on anywhere
else?
I agree that b4 must follow what git-version outputs and I sent a patch
for b4 [2] but each tool having to implement custom parsing for only the
specifics of the git-version output (as opposed to git-describe which
follows a common format) makes integration needlessly difficult.
Regards, Jonas
[1]: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/Versioning/
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/tools/20250905-versionparse-v1-1-48d926da9c10@pengutronix.de
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: [PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: Use standard versioning suffix
2025-09-05 12:19 ` brian m. carlson
2025-09-05 13:43 ` Jonas Rebmann
@ 2025-09-05 15:19 ` Junio C Hamano
1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: Junio C Hamano @ 2025-09-05 15:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: brian m. carlson; +Cc: Jonas Rebmann, git, Patrick Steinhardt, kernel
"brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste•net> writes:
> On 2025-09-05 at 12:14:38, Jonas Rebmann wrote:
>> In snapshot builds of git, git-version uses a modified variant of the
>> git-describe output, e.g. 2.51.0.178.g2462961280 instead of
>> 2.51.0-178-g2462961280 for seemingly historical reasons.
>>
>> This is not semver compliant which makes the output harder to parse in
>> tooling such as b4, which currently errors out when using a snapshot
>> build of git.
>
> Git doesn't follow SemVer. We make breaking and incompatible changes
> without bumping the major version all the time, so it doesn't make sense
> to say that we should follow SemVer for version numbers.
>
> I would say that since Git has had this version number format for a long
> time, b4, which is much newer and should be designed to work with Git,
> should gracefully handle the Git version number rather than have Git
> conform to b4.
Well said.
If somebody cares about the format deeply enough to patch it, it is
likely that somebody else cares equally deeply about the current
format and depends on it, as Git these days are used by more than a
few thousands of people, and "semvar syntax" is too weak a reason to
change it for everybody.
If somebody wants to have their own versioning scheme, there is an
escape hatch to drop the "version" file in their source material,
which does not have to change versioning schemes used by other
builders with a patch like this one.
Thanks.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: [PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: Use standard versioning suffix
2025-09-05 12:14 [PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: Use standard versioning suffix Jonas Rebmann
2025-09-05 12:19 ` brian m. carlson
@ 2025-09-05 12:32 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: Kristoffer Haugsbakk @ 2025-09-05 12:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jonas Rebmann, git; +Cc: Junio C Hamano, Patrick Steinhardt, kernel
Hi
The following might not be immediately relevant in light of what brian
just wrote.
On Fri, Sep 5, 2025, at 14:14, Jonas Rebmann wrote:
>[snip]
> This is not semver compliant which makes the output harder to parse in
> tooling such as b4, which currently errors out when using a snapshot
> build of git.
>
> For snapshot builds, use as version string the unmodified git-describe
> output with only the leading v stripped from the tag.
>
> Fixes: 5c7d3c9507f7 ("Allow building of RPM from interim snapshot.")
For other readers: this can be traced back to from
• `git log -S'VN=$(echo "$VN"' GIT-VERSION-GEN`
• which finds 374dfaa2e39 (Make GIT-VERSION-GEN tolerate missing git
describe command again, 2006-01-26)
• which in turn references this 5c7d3c9507f (Allow building of RPM from
interim snapshot., 2006-01-16)
This project doesn’t use this Kernel-style trailer.[1] Also not the commit
reference style. (It uses `git show -s --pretty=reference <commit>`)
It’s more common to place it inside the body of the message. Like a
replacement for the preceding “historical reasons”.
† 1: It’s almost only trailers which attribute people. (I am having a hard
time coming up with exceptions; you can find at least
one Cherry-picked-from)
> Signed-off-by: Jonas Rebmann <jre@pengutronix•de>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
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2025-09-05 12:14 [PATCH] GIT-VERSION-GEN: Use standard versioning suffix Jonas Rebmann
2025-09-05 12:19 ` brian m. carlson
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2025-09-05 15:19 ` Junio C Hamano
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