Re: meaning of "Automatic date update in version.in" commits

Petr Ovtchenkov
2017-09-20T17:24:00Z

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 18:16:45 +0200
Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> wrote:

> On Sep 20 2017, Petr Ovtchenkov <ptr@void-ptr.info> wrote:
>
> > What is the meaning of "Automatic date update in version.in" commits?
> > I mean commits like f625a739e5.
>
> It is used to name the shared libbfd and libopcodes, since there is no
> stable ABI.
>
> > This commits litter commits tree and create problems for
> > deterministic, bit-identical and/or verifiable builds.
>
> Why is that a problem? The version is fixed for a particular source
> snapshot.
>

It's looks as a problem indeed:
- garbage in commits
- disorientation, when date present in SONAME
0x000000000000000e (SONAME) Library soname: [libbfd-2.29.0.20170729.so]

You see:

git show 3110f4be18a2
commit 3110f4be18a2f3b9fcd9663ed1dd141bbd6ed14f
Author: GDB Administrator <gdbadmin@sourceware.org>
Date: Wed Sep 20 00:01:01 2017 +0000

Automatic date update in version.in

diff --git a/bfd/version.h b/bfd/version.h
index 3405e42..955269f 100644
--- a/bfd/version.h
+++ b/bfd/version.h
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#define BFD_VERSION_DATE 20170919
+#define BFD_VERSION_DATE 20170920
#define BFD_VERSION @bfd_version@
#define BFD_VERSION_STRING @bfd_version_package@ @bfd_version_string@
#define REPORT_BUGS_TO @report_bugs_to@

git show f625a739
commit f625a739e567f0110b2675539b7a0e5d5f67c5dc
Author: GDB Administrator <gdbadmin@sourceware.org>
Date: Wed Sep 20 00:01:22 2017 +0000

Automatic date update in version.in

diff --git a/bfd/version.h b/bfd/version.h
index 3405e42..955269f 100644
--- a/bfd/version.h
+++ b/bfd/version.h
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#define BFD_VERSION_DATE 20170919
+#define BFD_VERSION_DATE 20170920
#define BFD_VERSION @bfd_version@
#define BFD_VERSION_STRING @bfd_version_package@ @bfd_version_string@
#define REPORT_BUGS_TO @report_bugs_to@

git diff 3110f4be18a2 f625a739
...
Ooops....

This approch produce ambiguity, but try to conceal it.

--

- ptr