katversion 1.3

Reliable git-based versioning for Python packages

The katversion package provides proper versioning for Python packages as dictated by their (git) source repositories. The resulting version string is baked into the installed package’s __init__.py file for guaranteed traceability when imported (no dependency on what pkg_resources or importlib thinks!).

Version String Format

katversion generates a version string for your SCM package that complies with PEP 440. It only supports git repositories.

The format of our version string is:

- for RELEASE builds:
    <major>.<minor>
    e.g.
    0.1
    2.4

- for DEVELOPMENT builds:
    <major>.<minor>.dev<num_commits>+<branch_name>.g<short_git_sha>[.dirty]
    e.g.
    0.2.dev34+new.shiny.feature.gfa973da
    2.5.dev7+master.gb91ffa6.dirty

- for UNKNOWN builds:
    0.0+unknown.[<scm_type>.]<timestamp>
    e.g.
    0.0+unknown.git.201402031023
    0.0+unknown.201602081715

where <major>.<minor> is derived from the latest version tag and
<num_commits> is the total number of commits on the development branch.

The <major>.<minor> substring for development builds will be that of the
NEXT (minor) release, in order to allow proper Python version ordering.

To add a version tag use the `git tag` command, e.g.

    $ git tag -a 1.2 -m 'Release version 1.2'

Typical Usage

Add this to setup.py (handles installed packages):

from setuptools import setup

setup(
    ...,
    # version=1.0,  # remove the version parameter as it will be overridden
    setup_requires=['katversion'],
    use_katversion=True,
    ...
)

Add this to mypackage/__init__.py, including the comment lines (handles local packages):

# BEGIN VERSION CHECK
# Get package version when locally imported from repo or via -e develop install
try:
    import katversion as _katversion
except ImportError:  # pragma: no cover
    import time as _time
    __version__ = "0.0+unknown.{}".format(_time.strftime('%Y%m%d%H%M'))
else:  # pragma: no cover
    __version__ = _katversion.get_version(__path__[0])
# END VERSION CHECK

In addition, a command-line script for checking the version:

# From inside your SCM subdirectory, run the following command
# which will print the result to stdout:
$ kat-get-version.py