From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:39:44 GMT
Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH 0/2] Test the Git version string
Message-ID: <7vli8k4lnj.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <79879228B71A45A48A961F5B1880B61F@PhilipOakley>

"Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org> writes:

>> If the "parsing" is done for white/blacklist purposes, is there a
>> need to straight-jacket the verison string format like this series?
>
> The purpose is to document what we felt we could guarantee, and that
> which was open to variation, so that those, like the Git-Gui, can code
> in a sensible check for the version. Two digits (X.Y) should pass the
> existing Git Gui check.
>
> I'll drop the length limit, and keep to an X.Y check
>
> Is the end of t0000-basic.sh a sensible place for the check?

Sorry, but I still do not understand what you are trying to achieve.

What kind of benefit are you envisioning out of this?  For a future
version, people would not know what incompatibilities it would
introduce, so

	case "$(git version)" in
	"git verison"[2-9].*)
        	echo unsupported version
                exit 1
                ;;
	esac

is a nonsense check.

For all released versions, people know how they looked like and we
do not have anything further to specify.  Git 1.5.0 will forever
identify itself as:

	$ git version
        git version 1.5.0

Worse yet, for an untagged version, you may get something like

	git version 1.8.2.1-515-g78d2372

and it may or may not behave the same way as 1.8.2.1 depending on
what trait you are interested in.