[dmd-internals] dmd-devel version number

[Walter Bright]

On 2/6/2013 9:46 AM, Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> I would really like to have a version number for development snapshots
> of DMD like: 2.060-devel-HASH, where HASH is the hash of the HEAD commit
> used to compile the compiler.
>
> The VERSION file should hold the string 2.060-devel and the hash will be
> automatically appended. An optional symbol will be used (like +) to
> indicate a dirty working tree (a working tree with uncommitted changes).
> The extra hash will only be appended if the version string ends with
> -devel, so when releasing it should be enough to remove the -devel
> suffix from the version file to make all the devel information go away.
>
> I notice some work was done (and undone) about the version number
> lately. So before issuing a pull request I want to ask two questions:
>
> 1. Would such a pull request be accepted?
> 2. I don't have a test environment for win32, and I don't know if it's
>     even possible to execute a command there and get its output, do you
>     know if that's possible? And if not, or is very complex, would it be
>     acceptable to have this full devel version with a hash reported in
>     POSIX but not in win32? Remember this is only for devel releases
>     (which I hope includes beta releases, and potentially nightly build,
>     if those even happen).
>
> Thank you.

I want to use VERSION for much more than just generating a .h file, and having 
more information in there would mess that up.

What use do you intend for this change?