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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!haven.umd.edu!uunet!timbuk.cray.com!hemlock.cray.com!overby From: overby@cray.com (Glen Overby) Subject: Re: PLEA across the board. Message-ID: <1993Apr20.102524.4417@hemlock.cray.com> Keywords: version information Lines: 27 Nntp-Posting-Host: fig15 Organization: Lego Land References: <jmonroyC5rz7x.LA1@netcom.com> Date: 20 Apr 93 10:25:24 CDT In article <jmonroyC5rz7x.LA1@netcom.com> jmonroy@netcom.com (Jesus Monroy Jr) writes: > A Plea follows to 386BSD developers > After several frustraiong experiences with linux software, I'd >like to propose that all linux authors and porters try to put a version >number in their binaries that can be called with -v, -V, -h or -?. It 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) Ditto with libraries. Header files are tougher because of multiple references. Then you don't have to worry about assigning and updating an over-all program version. Just make sure you distribute binaries build from sources that haven't been modified since their most recent check-out. Glen/B