imjasonh/version
1
0
Fork 0
mirror of https://github.com/imjasonh/version synced 2026-07-06 22:12:27 +00:00
Code Activity

more rant

Browse source 
Signed-off-by: Jason Hall <jason@chainguard.dev>
This commit is contained in:
Jason Hall 2025-04-06 17:53:52 -04:00
parent 1e72f78fa2
commit 18d146a4cc
Failed to extract signature
1 changed files with 7 additions and 3 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

10
README.md
View file

@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ func main() {
This code is not maintained, and I will not accept PRs to add features. Fork it if you want it. It's like 50 lines, just copy it into your codebase and go to town.
Please stop using `ldflags` to embed this information. Or if you do, at least embed a reproducible time.
Please stop using `ldflags` to embed this information.
-----
@ -36,9 +36,13 @@ go build -ldflags="-X 'main.commit=$(git rev-parse HEAD)'"
This was kinda gross, but it worked, so people did it. And _boy_ did they do it. This little trick got cargo-culted all over the place! Anecdotally, basically any Go application you use has its version embedded this way.
Don't believe me? [Here's about 76,000 hits on GitHub for `ldflags` and `golang` in `Makefile`s](https://github.com/search?type=code&q=ldflags+%22golang%22+path%3AMakefile). Not _all_ of these are embedding version information in `ldflags`, but most of them are. And what's worse, they're all doing the same thing in a very non-standard way, not just writing `main.commit`, but all kinds of stuff like `github.com/wish/eventmaster.Version`, [`k8s.io/client-go/pkg/version.gitCommit`](https://github.com/kubernetes/client-go/blob/kubernetes-1.32.3/pkg/version/base.go#L60), [`k8s.io/release-utils/pkg/version.gitCommit`](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/release-utils/blob/v0.11.1/version/version.go#L44), and tons more. The cargo-cult has spread far and wide.
Don't believe me? [Here's about 76,000 hits on GitHub for `ldflags` and `golang` in `Makefile`s](https://github.com/search?type=code&q=ldflags+%22golang%22+path%3AMakefile). Not _all_ of these are embedding version information in `ldflags`, but most of them are.
Sometimes folks also wanted a build date embedded, and okay, sure, we can do that too:
And what's worse, they're all doing the same thing in a very non-standard way, not just writing `main.commit`, but all kinds of stuff like `github.com/wish/eventmaster.Version`, [`k8s.io/client-go/pkg/version.gitCommit`](https://github.com/kubernetes/client-go/blob/kubernetes-1.32.3/pkg/version/base.go#L60), [`k8s.io/release-utils/pkg/version.gitCommit`](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/release-utils/blob/v0.11.1/version/version.go#L44), and tons more. The cargo-cult has spread far and wide.
And, because `ldflags` doesn't care if those values are set, and doesn't care if the value you set doesn't exist, a lot of people _think_ they're doing something when they're not.
Aaaanyway, sometimes folks also wanted a build date embedded, and okay, sure, we can do that too:
```
go build -ldflags="-X 'main.buildDate=$(date +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)'"