GIT-VERSION-GEN: fix overriding GIT_VERSION

GIT-VERSION-GEN tries to derive the version that Git is being built from
via multiple different sources in the following order:

  1. A file called "version" in the source tree's root directory, if it
     exists.

  2. The current commit in case Git is built from a Git repository.

  3. Otherwise, we use a fallback version stored in a variable which is
     bumped whenever a new Git version is getting tagged.

It used to be possible to override the version by overriding the
`GIT_VERSION` Makefile variable (e.g. `make GIT_VERSION=foo`). This
worked somewhat by chance, only: `GIT-VERSION-GEN` would write the
actual Git version into `GIT-VERSION-FILE`, not the overridden value,
but when including the file into our Makefile we would not override the
`GIT_VERSION` variable because it has already been set by the user. And
because our Makefile used the variable to propagate the version to our
build tools instead of using `GIT-VERSION-FILE` the resulting build
artifacts used the overridden version.

But that subtle mechanism broke with 4838dea (Makefile: refactor
GIT-VERSION-GEN to be reusable, 2024-12-06) and subsequent commits
because the version information is not propagated via the Makefile
variable anymore, but instead via the files that `GIT-VERSION-GEN`
started to write. And as the script never knew about the `GIT_VERSION`
environment variable in the first place it uses one of the values listed
above instead of the overridden value.

Fix this issue by making `GIT-VERSION-GEN` handle the case where
`GIT_VERSION` has been set via the environment.

Note that this requires us to introduce a new GIT_VERSION_OVERRIDE
variable that stores a potential user-provided value, either via the
environment or via "config.mak". Ideally we wouldn't need it and could
just continue to use GIT_VERSION for this. But unfortunately, Makefiles
will first include all sub-Makefiles before figuring out whether it
needs to re-make any of them [1]. Consequently, if there already is a
GIT-VERSION-FILE, we would have slurped in its value of GIT_VERSION
before we call GIT-VERSION-GEN, and because GIT-VERSION-GEN now uses
that value as an override it would mean that the first generated value
for GIT_VERSION will remain unchanged.

Furthermore we have to move the include for "GIT-VERSION-FILE" after the
includes for "config.mak" and related so that GIT_VERSION_OVERRIDE can
be set to the value provided by "config.mak".

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Remaking-Makefiles.html

Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>

Documentation/Makefile

@@ -181,6 +181,10 @@ endif
 -include ../config.mak.autogen
 -include ../config.mak
 
+# Set GIT_VERSION_OVERRIDE such that version_gen knows to substitute
+# GIT_VERSION in case it was set by the user.
+GIT_VERSION_OVERRIDE := $(GIT_VERSION)
+
 ifndef NO_MAN_BOLD_LITERAL
 XMLTO_EXTRA += -m manpage-bold-literal.xsl
 endif

GIT-VERSION-GEN

@@ -27,31 +27,35 @@ fi
 GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES="$SOURCE_DIR/.."
 export GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES
 
-# First see if there is a version file (included in release tarballs),
-# then try git-describe, then default.
-if test -f "$SOURCE_DIR"/version
+if test -z "$GIT_VERSION"
 then
-	VN=$(cat "$SOURCE_DIR"/version) || VN="$DEF_VER"
-elif {
-		test -d "$SOURCE_DIR/.git" ||
-		test -d "${GIT_DIR:-.git}" ||
-		test -f "$SOURCE_DIR"/.git;
-	} &&
-	VN=$(git -C "$SOURCE_DIR" describe --match "v[0-9]*" HEAD 2>/dev/null) &&
-	case "$VN" in
-	*$LF*) (exit 1) ;;
-	v[0-9]*)
-		git -C "$SOURCE_DIR" update-index -q --refresh
-		test -z "$(git -C "$SOURCE_DIR" diff-index --name-only HEAD --)" ||
-		VN="$VN-dirty" ;;
-	esac
-then
-	VN=$(echo "$VN" | sed -e 's/-/./g');
-else
-	VN="$DEF_VER"
+	# First see if there is a version file (included in release tarballs),
+	# then try git-describe, then default.
+	if test -f "$SOURCE_DIR"/version
+	then
+		VN=$(cat "$SOURCE_DIR"/version) || VN="$DEF_VER"
+	elif {
+			test -d "$SOURCE_DIR/.git" ||
+			test -d "${GIT_DIR:-.git}" ||
+			test -f "$SOURCE_DIR"/.git;
+		} &&
+		VN=$(git -C "$SOURCE_DIR" describe --match "v[0-9]*" HEAD 2>/dev/null) &&
+		case "$VN" in
+		*$LF*) (exit 1) ;;
+		v[0-9]*)
+			git -C "$SOURCE_DIR" update-index -q --refresh
+			test -z "$(git -C "$SOURCE_DIR" diff-index --name-only HEAD --)" ||
+			VN="$VN-dirty" ;;
+		esac
+	then
+		VN=$(echo "$VN" | sed -e 's/-/./g');
+	else
+		VN="$DEF_VER"
+	fi
+
+	GIT_VERSION=$(expr "$VN" : v*'\(.*\)')
 fi
 
-GIT_VERSION=$(expr "$VN" : v*'\(.*\)')
 GIT_BUILT_FROM_COMMIT=$(git -C "$SOURCE_DIR" rev-parse -q --verify HEAD 2>/dev/null)
 GIT_DATE=$(git -C "$SOURCE_DIR" show --quiet --format='%as' 2>/dev/null)
 if test -z "$GIT_USER_AGENT"

Makefile

@@ -591,13 +591,6 @@ include shared.mak
 #
 #        Disable -pedantic compilation.
 
-GIT-VERSION-FILE: FORCE
-	@OLD=$$(cat $@ 2>/dev/null || :) && \
-	$(call version_gen,"$(shell pwd)",GIT-VERSION-FILE.in,$@) && \
-	NEW=$$(cat $@ 2>/dev/null || :) && \
-	if test "$$OLD" != "$$NEW"; then echo "$$NEW" >&2; fi
--include GIT-VERSION-FILE
-
 # Set our default configuration.
 #
 # Among the variables below, these:
@@ -1465,6 +1458,18 @@ ifdef DEVELOPER
 include config.mak.dev
 endif
 
+GIT-VERSION-FILE: FORCE
+	@OLD=$$(cat $@ 2>/dev/null || :) && \
+	$(call version_gen,"$(shell pwd)",GIT-VERSION-FILE.in,$@) && \
+	NEW=$$(cat $@ 2>/dev/null || :) && \
+	if test "$$OLD" != "$$NEW"; then echo "$$NEW" >&2; fi
+
+# We need to set GIT_VERSION_OVERRIDE before including the version file as
+# otherwise any user-provided value for GIT_VERSION would have been overridden
+# already.
+GIT_VERSION_OVERRIDE := $(GIT_VERSION)
+-include GIT-VERSION-FILE
+
 # what 'all' will build and 'install' will install in gitexecdir,
 # excluding programs for built-in commands
 ALL_PROGRAMS = $(PROGRAMS) $(SCRIPTS)

shared.mak

@@ -122,5 +122,6 @@ endef
 # as arguments, in that order.
 define version_gen
 GIT_USER_AGENT="$(GIT_USER_AGENT)" \
+GIT_VERSION="$(GIT_VERSION_OVERRIDE)" \
 $(SHELL_PATH) "$(1)/GIT-VERSION-GEN" "$(1)" "$(2)" "$(3)"
 endef