Re: [Distutils] Specifying version information once

Jean-Paul Calderone writes:

On Wed, 20 May 2009 10:17:31 +1000, Ben Finney wrote:

...

Those breakages seem to be caused in part because the module containing version information is doing too much.

The only thing the version module does is define the version. For example,

$ cat _version.py # This is an auto-generated file. Use Epsilon/bin/release-divmod to update. from twisted.python import versions version = versions.Version(__name__[:__name__.rfind('.')], 0, 9, 33) $

Of course, the "too much" here is the use of a structured version object.

No, I would say “too much” here is importing a module not guaranteed to be installed, for creating something as simple as a version. I'd prefer the above to be:: $ cat _version.py # This is an auto-generated file. Use magicbean to update. version = "0.9.33" $ Anything that wants to have that structured into something more complex than a delimited string can use the funky Version type; but this particular module should import without any dependencies, for exactly the reasons that started this thread.

Doing anything simpler would be much like the approach Phillip's pointed out, to have a simple text file and parse its contents without getting Python involved at all.

I still like the approach of having it in a module that can be imported to automatically have the name bound to an appropriate value. -- \ “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will | `\ not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog | _o__) and a man.” —Mark Twain, _Pudd'n'head Wilson_ | Ben Finney