[GRASS-dev] Getting version number *before* starting

[Vaclav Petras]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:51 AM, Rainer M Krug <Rainer at krugs.de> wrote:

> Hi
>
> I would, for implementation in spgrass7 in R, to be able to get the version
> number of GRASS GIS before starting GRASS.


I know about the --version parameter of grass command.

{{{
$ grass64 --version

GRASS GIS 6.4.4

Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) is Copyright,
1999-2014 by the GRASS Development Team, and licensed under terms of the
GNU General Public License (GPL) version >=2.

This GRASS 6.4.4 release is coordinated and produced by the...
}}}

Unfortunately for GRASS GIS 7 it is giving more the license and about then
the version:

{{{
$ grass71 --version

Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) is Copyright,
1999-2014 by the GRASS Development Team, and licensed under terms of the
GNU General Public License (GPL) version >=2.

This GRASS 7.1.svn release is coordinated and produced by
}}}

Although, I'm running 71 from source code, so it might be different.

To get general idea, here are examples what other projects have in
--version:

{{{
gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) 4.8.2
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
...
}}}

{{{
pandoc --version
pandoc 1.12.2.1
Compiled with texmath 0.6.5.2, highlighting-kate 0.5.5.1.
Syntax highlighting is supported for the following languages:
...
}}}

I know that in the file
>
> ,----
> | GRASS_BASE_DIRECTORY/etc/VERSIONNUMBER
> `----
>
> the version number is stored, but I have two questions:
>
> 1) is this the same between systems (I saw it in Mac Linux and Windows)?
> 2) I assume the location of this file is very un-likely to change?
> 3) can the internal structure of the GDRASS_BASE_DIRECTORY be configured
> during the build process (particularly the bin/ and the location of
> VERSIONNUMBER), and if yes, how can I obtain the location of these folders?
>
> So: would there be any downside in just reading this file to determine
> the version of GRASS GIS, as the grass startup script seems to be
> reading from that file as well?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rainer
>
> --
> Rainer M. Krug
> email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
> PGP: 0x0F52F982
>
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>
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