Re: Referring to revisions in the git future.

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

> Hello, David.
>
> On Sat, Nov 01, 2014 at 12:57:13PM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:
>
>> > Yes, that sounds like an excellent reason for using hashes.  But for many
>> > uses, a revision number is better.  bzr has them both.  git doesn't.
>
>> Git has "git describe" for getting a sequence-based decription.  It's
>> used for informal version numbers, like for a self-compiled git as
>> opposed to an official release:
>
>> dak@lola:/usr/local/tmp/lilypond$ git --version
>> git version 1.9.1
>> dak@lola:/usr/local/tmp/lilypond$ ../git/git --version
>> git version 2.1.0.rc2.3.g67de23d.dirty
>> dak@lola:/usr/local/tmp/lilypond$ cd ../git
>> dak@lola:/usr/local/tmp/git$ git describe
>> v2.1.0-rc2-3-g67de23d
>
> Maybe I'm blind, but I can't see anything like a sequential version
> number in that string.

It's the 3.  The tag v2.1.0-rc2 occured 3 commits before the named one:

*   commit 67de23ddb1ed5471e302f6a84fae7a9037a0d980 (HEAD, master)
|\  Merge: f82887f 09898e7
| | Author: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
| | Date:   Sun Aug 10 11:03:03 2014 -0700
| | 
| |     Merge branch 'master' of git://ozlabs.org/~paulus/gitk
| |     
| |     * 'master' of git://ozlabs.org/~paulus/gitk:
| |       gitk: Updated Bulgarian translation (302t,0f,0u)
| |       gitk: Add keybinding to switch to parent commit
| |   
| * commit 09898e7c3b040086e8addd4ef226548c9dce1460
| | Author: Alexander Shopov <ash@kambanaria.org>
| | Date:   Sun Aug 3 15:36:43 2014 +0300
| | 
| |     gitk: Updated Bulgarian translation (302t,0f,0u)
| |     
| |     Signed-off-by: Alexander Shopov <ash@kambanaria.org>
| |     Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
| |   
| * commit d4ec30b24a8ad076771064ac71dbe5420512cc30
| | Author: Max Kirillov <max@max630.net>
| | Date:   Tue Jul 8 23:45:35 2014 +0300
| | 
| |     gitk: Add keybinding to switch to parent commit
| |     
| |     Signed-off-by: Max Kirillov <max@max630.net>
| |     Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
| |   
* | commit f82887f29010e1ec88ec1930a99ddc56b6438452 (tag: v2.1.0-rc2)
| | Author: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
| | Date:   Fri Aug 8 13:52:16 2014 -0700
| | 
| |     Git 2.1-rc2
| |     
| |     Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>


>> Nobody uses it in Email communication because there are no sufficient
>> upsides to it.
>
> Is it of any use for anything?  Can you use it as input to a git
> command, for example?

You can, but git just skims off the g67de23d as far as I can tell and
uses that.

>> I am not really interested in continuing this silliness since it is
>> totally irrelevant, anyway.  If you want to change Git's operation
>> and nomenclature, feel free to make your point on the Git developer
>> list and tell everybody there they are doing it all wrong.
>
> I've never been anywhere near that list, but I'd be willing to bet an
> awful lot of money that this point has been raised many times on that
> list, each time being dismissively dismissed with religious fervour.

The irony, the irony.

> There are certainly workarounds for the lack of version numbers in
> git, as you and others have pointed out.  I expect their necessity
> will bring me to hate the program.  Such is life.

I have no doubt that you'll be able to indulge your preconceptions.

-- 
David Kastrup