pcb-rnd knowledge pool
Limitations of the 'svn rev' info in pcb-rnd executable
| svn_rev by Tibor 'Igor2' Palinkas on 2018-01-01 | Tags: insight, svn, revision, --version, version, about, compilation, configure |
Abstract: pcb-rnd --version and the about box prints the svn revision number of the executable (unless it was compiled from a release tarball). This mechanism has limitations, tho, as described in this node.
The revision is queried and put into config.h by ./configure. As we fix bugs and develop pcb-rnd, we need to require to user to rerun ./configure in every few hundred revisions normally (see scconfig/Rev.tab). This lets you do very fast, incremental builds after svn up, using only make. And you can indeed trust in make, and don't have to blindly rerun ./configure and rebuild the whole thing: because of Rev.tab the build system tells you when you need to reconfigure.
The price of all these convenience is that the rev number saved in config.h will reflect the svn state of the last ./configure, not the last compile. So before you install or archive an executable, please do run ./configure and recompile, even if it isn't required for the build.