[OpenBIOS] [PATCH v3] Add revision number to banner

[Mark Cave-Ayland]

On 05/12/15 04:13, Programmingkid wrote:

> On Dec 3, 2015, at 5:11 PM, Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:
> 
>> On 02/12/15 20:20, Programmingkid wrote:
>>
>>> The banner is displayed at the start of openbios with the version and build
>>> time. This patch adds the revision number for easier identification of binary
>>> version. It would look like this: 
>>>
>>> Welcome to OpenBIOS v1.1 (Revision 1358) built on Nov 28 2015 18:22
>>>
>>> If the user doesn't have the svn command, git command,
>>> or an svn repo, the word "unknown" is used instead of
>>> the number. 
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: John Arbuckle <programmingkidx at gmail.com>
>>>
>>> New in revision 3:
>>> Added support for a variable length repo number.
>>>
>>> New in revision 2:
>>> Added support for git if the repo is being managed by it. 
>>
>> Hmmmm I'm still not 100% convinced this patch is the right way to go,
>> particularly with git where we have different sets of commit ids
>> depending upon whether you have a local git-svn checkout or a checkout
>> from the (more popular) git.qemu.org.
> 
> Knowing the commit id that the binary is based on is very helpful in determining what features the binary would have. If the new banner text makes you uncomfortable, this patch could be changed so that only the word revision is added to OpenBIOS. I'd be more than happy to make this change if you want. That way the user could still find out the revision their binary is based on.

Right, but remember there are at least 2 different repositories out
there with differing git commit ids for each SVN commit so it's not that
straightforward.

Note that OpenBIOS is added as a git submodule so we have a snapshot of
the tree for each release. For most people, qemu -version or similar
will be enough to report what features a particular release will have,
and anyone with a checkout of QEMU git can dig in if required. It's also
possible to work out the version of QEMU in use from the build date
included in the OpenBIOS banner.

For developers/testers then all bets are off as you're going to have a
custom binary regardless, so no-one other than the author can track what
is in it - which means all you can say is "this is not an official
OpenBIOS binary". But then again as mentioned above you can already work
this out from the date in the OpenBIOS banner, so then you're back where
you started...


ATB,

Mark.