git-quick-version

A small immutable unix/sh script to get a reasonable version for the current git HEAD. No changes to workflow or repository required.

Will output a version in format: {tag}+{commit_count} ({short_hash})

Since version 1.3 we support rfc3896 output in format {tag}.${commit_count}-{short_hash} using the -o rfc3896 option.

It will take the most recent tag which has a commit in the current log. The commit_count will be all commits between the tag and the short_hash.

Toy example of version at each commit:

* Release (tag: 1.1)    # "1.1+0 (c5c5c5c5)"
|
* Merge Commit #3	# "1.1-rc+2  (e5e5e5e)"
|\
| * Fix bugs 		# "1.1-rc1+1 (a5a5a5a)"
| |
| * RC1 (tag: 1.1-rc1)  # "1.1-rc1+0 (b5b5b5b)"
| |
| * Add feature		# "1.0+1 (f5f5f5f)"
|/
* Release (tag: 1.0)    # "1.0+0 (d5d5d5d)"

Try it out:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/i404788/git-quick-version/master/quick-version.sh | sh

Assumptions/Goals

You use git tag sometimes.

Your version can be any ASCII printable-string. Some protocols might have character constraints, this is not meant for that. Since version 1.3 this has been added.

You want your version to be easily readable & accurate with near-zero effort and/or overhead.

Your git log is usually chronological.

Theory of Operation

There are some edge-cases which aren't yet covered (or are minimally covered).

No tags in the log

Currently it will just show 0.0+{log_size} ({hash})

Checkout at f5a44ca005c4ced88b9b7118db6164f4f1caa639 to see this in action.

quick-version will give 0.0+0 (f5a44ca)

Tag finding algorithm

Normally, if develop merged into master and master is then the release tag, the develop branch has no knowledge of this tag and only knows it's transitive parents. Resulting in develop having an out-of-date version even though it was the cause of the tag.

We have fixed this by checking if $TAG^2 is in the current log, this means that after a tag is created the last remote (develop) commit before the merge will have the same non-hash version. This feature is put in place so it requires minimal upkeep to get accurate versions on an upstream branch.

Note that tags on non-merge commits will still work the same way as usual see 1.4+0 & 1.2+1. This means that a rebase or merge back can still be useful or necessary to get the versioning you want.

Consider the example shown below.

  * Merge3 (develop)		# 1.4+1-\  |`master` is merged back into `develop` to gain the `1.4` tag
 /|					 |-|If this wasn't a merge the version would still be `1.2+2`
* | Release3 (master, tag: 1.4)	# 1.4+0-/
| |
* | Merge2			# 1.3+1--\
|\|					 |-----|1.3+1 is a direct descendant of `1.3` and does not have a tag
| * Dev2			# 1.2+1--|---\
| |					 |    \  |1.2+1 gets tag from the merged `Dev1`
* | Release2 (tag: 1.3)		# 1.3+0--/     |-|`Dev1` gets the tag by exception as described 
| |					      /
* | Merge1 (tag: 1.2)		# 1.2+0------/
|\|					    /
| * Dev1			# 1.2+0----/
|/
* Release1 (tag: 1.1)		# 1.1+0