[Q] Getting the latest available Linux-kernel version (v3.x.y-stable or v3.x.y-rcX)?

Hi,

for my Linux-kernel build-script I am searching for a reliable check of getting the ***latest*** version. This could be 'v3.x.y-stable' or 'v3.x.y-rcX'.

'git tag' seems to be fast, but not reliable. 'git log --oneline' is slow, but does the job.

For getting v3.x.y-stable this seems to work...

$ git tag | grep ^'v3.[0-9]*' | grep -v '\-rc' | sort --version-sort v3.0 v3.1 v3.2 v3.3 v3.4 v3.5 v3.6 v3.7 v3.8 v3.9 v3.10

...but not when listing v3.x.y-rcX, too:

$ git tag | grep ^'v3.[0-9]*' | sort --version-sort | grep ^'v3.10' v3.10 v3.10-rc1 v3.10-rc2 v3.10-rc3 v3.10-rc4 v3.10-rc5 v3.10-rc6 v3.10-rc7

I know that v3.10 > v3.10-rcX, but not 'git tag' or 'sort --version-sort' :-).

This seems from my poor sed/awk/grep skills to be the most reliable method...

$ time git log --oneline v3.0-rc1.. | grep 'Linux 3.' | awk '{ print $3 }' | grep ^'3.[0-9]*' | head -1 3.10

real 0m10.024s user 0m5.611s sys 0m4.857s

...but is slow (even I take v3.0-rc1 as the 1st version-tag of Linux-v3.x series).

Any improvements?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
- Sedat -

Sedat Dilek wrote:

  $ git describe HEAD

If you want a sorted list of tags,

  $ git for-each-ref --sort=taggerdate --format="%(refname:short)" refs/tags

Are you looking for something else?

On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 10:46 AM, Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Ramukar,

Thanks for the quick answer!

Cool, this seems to keep version-chronology!

$ git for-each-ref --sort=taggerdate --format="%(refname:short)" refs/tags | grep ^'v3.[0-9]*' | tail -1 v3.10

$ git for-each-ref --sort=taggerdate --format="%(refname:short)" refs/tags | grep ^'next-[0-9]*' | tail -1 next-20130702

Another question if I may ask:

Sometimes I need to bisect a previous Linux-Next version.

What I am doing is to have the latest Linux-v3.x.y(-rcX) as stable base.

$ git checkout upstream $ git checkout -b Linux-v3.10-rc7 v3.10-rc7

Afterwards I checkout the latest Linux-Next remote repository with all its (new) tags (here: next-20130628)

$ git checkout -b Linux-Next-v20130628 $ git pull linux-next --tags next-20130628

How do I get the latest available linux-version in the downgraded (current) Linux-Next local repository (example: I have parallelly Linux-Next-v20130702 and Linux-Next-v20130628)? If I have all -next tags merged-in, I will get always today's 'next-20130702'. Due to my poor git skillz I do this manually for git-bisect sessions.

Thanks again, you helped me a lot with the above!

- Sedat -

Sedat Dilek wrote:

I'm not able to understand the question. I'm not sure why you're creating branches from existing tags. You can easily do:

  $ git bisect start @ v3.10-rc7

(@ is a synonym for HEAD in the latest git)

You can also fetch all tags:

  $ git fetch --tags

and decide what to do with them later:

  $ git merge next-20130628

In the process, next-20130628 hasn't changed: you can still use it as a bisect endpoint.

*scratches head*

Can you try rephrasing your question?

On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 1:06 PM, Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, I will try.

The base for my local Linux development GIT repository is the one from Linus (aka upstream/mainline). There-in I pull diverse Linux-next releases where I take its latest Linux-upstream version as the new base.

EXAMPLES:

1. next-20130628 has its base as v3.10-rc7
2. next-20130702 has its base as v3.10

I am using always the version-tags for switching to a new local repo.

As said above I switch to the latest Linux-upstream version of the corresponding -next and then pull in via '--tags' (see above).

Let's say I am on today's next-20130702 and switch back to my local next-20130628 tree, the lastest version-tag available is always 'next-20130702'.

It could be my workflow is somewhere wrong.

Hope this is a bit enlightening.

Regards,
- Sedat -