Michael Sternberg wrote:
>
> Hello everybody.
>
> Is it any way to attach a verion number to executable file ? In
> Windows "right click -> properties -> Version" style ? Maybe as output
> of "file" command ? Of course I always can implement "-v" or
> "--version" switch to my executable, but do we have something more
> standard ?
No.

Windows uses "resources" to attach external data to the programs. This
external data can be bitmaps, dialog templates, icons (that's where the
program's icon come from), strings, version information, or just
anything else.

The idea behind resources is that you can add languages to a program by
simply using a resource editor to change the resources. It's a nice
idea, but the more I work with it, the more I'm convinced that the
gettext approach is better.

In particular, ELF files do not have resource sections, and thus do not
have any standard location to place the version information in.

You can save such data outside of the file itself. One such place can be
the xattr (extra attributes) that most modern FS support (ext3, xfs and
to some limited extent, also reiser). This has the disadvantage that
many programs (including tar and all current packaging formats) do not
copy these attributes around with the file itself, which probably means
that it's not going to do what you want it to do.

I'm afraid that -v IS the standard thing to do in such a case.

Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
Have you backed up today's work? http://www.lingnu.com/backup.html


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