Version

This package helps stamp binary executables with version information. When you build a go binary with this tool, you can print the version information with the "version", "-version", or "--version" flag.

Motivation

When I build a binary, I want the binary to report its version (on the command-line or in the gui). I want release versions to report a version like 'v0.5.2', but development versions should provide more information (build time stamp, commit hash) to aid in debugging.

How it works.

There are two parts to 'version'. First there is a library which defines variables (version, build date, etc) and some convenience functions for printing version info. Then there is a binary (goversion) which wraps the go binary and inserts version info using ldflags.

The goversion binary gets the version in the following way. It looks for git tags that start with 'v' followed by a digit. Then it finds the most recent tag which is an ancestor of HEAD. If it doesn't find such a tag, it looks for a file called .version or VERSION in the current directory or any parent directory.

Next it looks at the age of the version tag. If it's current then it uses just the tag name as the version. If it's not current, then it adds a partial git commit hash to the version string (e.g. 'v0.3.2-a83bc229').

Usage

Here is what a minimal program looks like:

package main

import "github.com/wx13/version"

func main() {
    version.Print()
    println("Do something...")
}

Now go get the package:

$ go get github.com/wx13/version.v0/goversion

Build your code with:

$ goversion build <any other normal build args>

Here is what the result might look like:

$ ./foo version
Version:    0.1
Build Date: 2016-12-23T23:21:41-08:00
Commit:     c4e91ed7dc70ec09f097b3847a88090e21dbe936

Advanced Usage

See the example directory for more advanced usage. You can set a custom print template. You can also use version information in your program, such as in a UI widget.