Python project versioning [closed]

Question

The problem:

I need to set versioning in my pythonproject.
Every time I make a release - I merge my production and development branches in my VCS.
I need to make the least amount of corrections in setting up version of the project and automate the process.

What I`ve done:

• I`ve read PEP 396 about module versioning (it is not exactly what I need)
• I figured out how to set up a version for the project with setup.py file in this documentation
• I figured out how django works with its versions here

My next steps:

I need for my release:

• release date
• revision
• version number

So I plan to make my release number format major.minor.changeset, because keeping the release date in the version makes it pretty long. I want to create version.py file:

MAJOR_VERSION = 1
MINOR_VERSION = 1
RELEASE_DATE = '28 .08.2013 '


def get_revision ():
    ...

def get_version ():
   ....

And import the version from there when I need it (but I'm affraid that someone can forget to set up proper date), and put the file CHANGE.TXT next to it which describes release changes.

The question:

I want to know how do you set versions in your python projects and how should I convert my idea to simplify my scheme.

Answer 1

Two related issues: (1) what are good choices for metadata to track at the module level, including versioning, plus other useful information; and (2) what is a good way to represent that metadata.

A general approach for module metadata is explained at http://epydoc.sourceforge.net/manual-fields.html#module-metadata-variables. This basically says, use constants named __author__, __authors__, __contact__, __copyright__, __license__, __date__ and __version__. These are commonly used, so it's a good convention.

Then for how to populate the __version__ constant -- a good model for versioning anything is semantic versioning -- see http://semver.org/. Basically, use 1.2.3 style in which major changes only when there's an incompatible API change, minor changes when there's new functionality, and micro aka patch changes when there's a bug fix. This is also used commonly and therefore a good convention.