govvv

The simple Go binary versioning tool that wraps the go build command.

⚠️⚠️⚠️ DEPRECATED: Go now offers build info natively. Please migrate to use that instead. I am no longer planning to maintain this project.

Stop worrying about -ldflags and go get github.com/ahmetb/govvv now.

Build Variables

Variable	Description	Example
main.GitCommit	short commit hash of source tree	0b5ed7a
main.GitBranch	current branch name the code is built off	master
main.GitState	whether there are uncommitted changes	clean or dirty
main.GitSummary	output of git describe --tags --dirty --always	v1.0.0, v1.0.1-5-g585c78f-dirty, fbd157c
main.BuildDate	RFC3339 formatted UTC date	2016-08-04T18:07:54Z
main.Version	contents of ./VERSION file, if exists, or the value passed via the -version option	2.0.0

Using govvv is easy

Just add the build variables you want to the main package and run:

old	✨ new ✨
go build	govvv build
go install	govvv install

Version your app with govvv

Create a VERSION file in your build root directory and add a Version variable to your main package.

Do you have your own way of specifying Version? No problem:

govvv lets you specify custom -ldflags

Your existing -ldflags argument will still be preserved:

govvv build -ldflags "-X main.BuildNumber=$buildnum" myapp

and the -ldflags constructed by govvv will be appended to your flag.

Don’t want to depend on govvv? It’s fine!

You can just pass a -print argument and govvv will just print the go build command with -ldflags for you and will not execute the go tool:

$ govvv build -print
go build \
    -ldflags \
    "-X main.GitCommit=57b9870 -X main.GitBranch=dry-run -X main.GitState=dirty -X main.Version=0.1.0 -X main.BuildDate=2016-08-08T20:50:21Z"

Still don’t want to wrap the go tool? Well, try -flags to retrieve the LDFLAGS govvv prepares:

$ go build -ldflags="$(govvv -flags)"

Want to use a different package?

You can pass a -pkg argument with the full package name, and govvv will set the build variables in that package instead of main. For example:

# build with govvv
$ govvv build -pkg github.com/myacct/myproj/mypkg

# build with go
$ go build -ldflags="$(govvv -flags -pkg $(go list ./mypkg))"

Want to use a different version?

You can pass a -version argument with the desired version, and govvv will use the specified version instead of obtaining it from the ./VERSION file. For example:

# build with govvv
$ govvv build -version 1.2.3

# build with go
$ go build -ldflags="$(govvv -flags -version 1.2.3)"

Try govvv today

$ go get github.com/ahmetb/govvv

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govvv is distributed under Apache 2.0 License.

Copyright 2016 Ahmet Alp Balkan

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