*BSD News Article 14999


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!tulane!ames!think.com!paperboy.osf.org!meissner
From: meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner)
Subject: Re: PLEA across the board.
In-Reply-To: overby@cray.com's message of 20 Apr 93 10:25:24 CDT
Message-ID: <MEISSNER.93Apr23211031@curley.osf.org>
Lines: 28
Sender: news@osf.org (USENET News System)
Organization: Open Software Foundation
References: <jmonroyC5rz7x.LA1@netcom.com> <1993Apr20.102524.4417@hemlock.cray.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1993 01:10:35 GMT
Lines: 28

In article <1993Apr20.102524.4417@hemlock.cray.com> overby@cray.com (Glen
Overby) writes:

| I'd like to suggest something similar, yet different:
| 
| (1) use a source control mechanism such as RCS/CVS or SCCS
| 
| (2) define a "static" character array in each source file that
| contains the source control system's version identification.  This
| allows anyone with read-access to the executable to find the version
| numbers of _all_ source modules making up the executable using
| 
| 	rcs	ident(1)
| 	sccs	what(1)

There is a general problem with this scheme (at least for RCS) unless you are
careful to use either non-standard keywords or something like co -kv to make
releases.  The problem is, if the user then puts the software under the same
source control system, the keywords will be updated to be the local version
number (ie, 1.1), rather than the release version number.  This makes the
situation even worse if the application did use the rcs keywords to generate
version numbers or ident/what strings.

--
Michael Meissner	email: meissner@osf.org		phone: 617-621-8861
Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142

You are in a twisty little passage of standards, all conflicting.