bug#38657: 27.0.50; Report build date in version

bug#38657: 27.0.50; Report build date in version

[noah]

I think this is probably the wrong mailing list, as this
isn't a bug, but a question/request about the pre-existing
behaviour of emacs --version output.

Personally, I think it would be useful to report the build
date/git tag on the dev version on emacs, eg. something like

    emacs --version
    GNU Emacs 27.0.50-d55f2f74f5(2019-12-15)

I realize this could be totally non-standard and break various
other features, but I find myseff using an alias to retrieve
this info from the command line occasionally (eg. emacs --eval ...).
I think appending the git tag at least is somewhat common.


In GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.30)
 of 2019-12-18 built on noah-M51AC
Repository revision: d55f2f74f53910c4416be1e023771dc3a8142727
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11906000
System Description: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Quit
Making completion list... [2 times]
Loading /home/noah/.gnus...done

Configured using:
 'configure --prefix=/usr/local --with-modules --with-xwidgets'

Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG SOUND GPM DBUS GSETTINGS GLIB NOTIFY INOTIFY
ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE HARFBUZZ M17N_FLT LIBOTF XFT ZLIB
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 XDBE XIM MODULES THREADS XWIDGETS JSON
PDUMPER LCMS2 GMP

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs
format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg
epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs text-property-search time-date
subr-x seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader cl-loaddefs
cl-lib sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils
tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type
mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image
regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode
lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch
timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu
font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer cl-generic cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european
ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop
case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray
cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files
text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule
custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote threads dbusbind
inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting
xwidget-internal move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty
make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 45151 9514)
 (symbols 48 6023 1)
 (strings 32 15526 1586)
 (string-bytes 1 506721)
 (vectors 16 10062)
 (vector-slots 8 129297 11028)
 (floats 8 20 45)
 (intervals 56 199 9)
 (buffers 1000 12))

bug#38657: 27.0.50; Report build date in version

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

noah <noah.v.peart@gmail.com> writes:

> I think this is probably the wrong mailing list, as this
> isn't a bug, but a question/request about the pre-existing
> behaviour of emacs --version output.
>
> Personally, I think it would be useful to report the build
> date/git tag on the dev version on emacs, eg. something like
>
>     emacs --version
>     GNU Emacs 27.0.50-d55f2f74f5(2019-12-15)
>
> I realize this could be totally non-standard and break various
> other features, but I find myseff using an alias to retrieve
> this info from the command line occasionally (eg. emacs --eval ...).
> I think appending the git tag at least is somewhat common.

I think including this in the output would be nice, but perhaps not in
that form.  So I've added a line like the following to Emacs 29:

Development version 4766fe1daf9f on master branch; build date 2022-05-23.


-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no