Command line --version/-v flag

[michaek]

Currently, sassc does not have the ability to output sassc/libsass versions. This should probably mimic the functionality of the ruby executable.

[xzyfer]

Since there is now a rough roadmap and there is decent traction I think this is sensible.

Avoiding these kinds of thread would be great! sass/libsass#492 (comment)

[michaek]

Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking. Each libsass consumer should presumably be outputting the version of libsass it's using, in addition to its own version.

[xzyfer]

@mgreter @am11 I'm hearing a lot of demand for this. Ideally I'd like to get this into the upcoming Libsass 3.0.2 since there's already significant changes to the C api on master. Can we progress this?

/cc @jedfoster @sindresorhus

[mgreter]

I think that would be a good thing, but IMO it should be automatically be taken from the git tags!

I personally often include this line in a Makefile:

GIT_VERSION := $(shell git describe --abbrev=4 --dirty --always --tags)

Later I pass it to gcc to define the VERSION macro:

g++ -DVERSION="\"$(GIT_VERSION)\"" -Wall -c foobar.cpp

I also add a test if VERSION was not specified in the header:

#ifndef VERSION
#define VERSION "[NA]"
#endif

But not sure if this is really a good solution, since it involves calling git (check for .git?).

By the way, do you mean the version of sassc or libsass (or both)?

[xzyfer]

This only needs to be done at release time though right?

My main query is whether this needs to be in sassc or the libsass c api to be useful to upstream consumers like node-sass etc..

[am11]

/copy sass/node-sass#548 (comment).

Actually, if we need to serve it to node-sass from downstream, it should come from libsass (as we do not have dependency on sassc there).

[am11]

@mgreter, welcome back! 😄

[xzyfer]

My opinions on this can be summarised as

It's my opinion that users being able to access the version of Libsass is critical
Frankly I'm happy to hard code a string into the source if it gets the job done for now :)

[jedfoster]

I run sassmeister.com as a tool for the Sass community. I try to keep the various compilers up to date, including exposing compiler versions in the UI of the app. This is currently a manual process for the LibSass compiler, as there is no way to determine the version programmatically. I've already opened an issue on the node-sass project, sass/node-sass#548, but as @xzyfer pointed out, programmatic access to the version would have benefits beyond my simple application.

Keep up the great work!

[am11]

Bundle of thanks to @mgreter! 😄 👍
This is a tricky way to do it, the one I didn't thought of.