[Vote ended on 2022-06-07] CLI program which prints the Ansible package's version

[mariolenz]

Summary

This is a follow-up to #87. As @felixfontein pointed out:

I think it would be worth integrating a small CLI program which prints this version, but the hard part is figuring out how to name it... Everything with prefix ansible is kind of reserved for the core team, and if we want to use something like ansible-version we should better ask for permission / coordinate that.

I agree that this would be useful. However, I would prefer something with ansible in the name. Even if we have to ask for permission / coordinate that.

How about ansible-community with a parameter --version? This would allow us to add more parameters when needed like (this is just a stupid example) --about without having to to bother the core team again.

Or ansible-community-version if we don't think we'll need more parameters.

Of course, we could turn it around: community-ansible / community-ansible-version. But I like it better the other way.

Ideas?

Additional Information

No response

[felixfontein]

Hmm, ansible-community --version sounds good to me. Also ansible-community should be a safe name for a CLI program.

[Andersson007]

i'm personally for more generic name like ansible-community with --version, SGTM

[mariolenz]

Should I open a vote for this?

And how would we implement it? I thought about this. One way would be to add something like src/antsibull/data/ansible-community.js2 and then let antsibull generate it:

#!/usr/bin/python
# coding: utf-8
# Author: Mario Lenz <m@riolenz.de>
# License: GPLv3+
# Copyright: Ansible Project, 2022

import argparse


def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument('--version', action='version', version='ansible community version {{ version }}', help="show the version of the ansible community package")
    args = parser.parse_args()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

What do you think?

[apple4ever]

YES PLEASE. I love this proposal, and I had thought about submitted it, but glad I was beaten to it.

I would prefer if it showed up under any of the --version, like ansible --version or ansible-playbook --version, but at the very least having ansible-community --version would be great (and maybe then the others could output it if it exists).

[bmbufalo]

Keeping the version information in a single location, such as under ansible --version would be preferred IMO, but any way we can get this information would also be helpful!

[felixfontein]

Including that information in ansible --version or ansible-playbook --version is not possible since the core team does not want to have it there. So it's either a separate program (like ansible-community --version), or it's nowhere at all.

[mariolenz]

ansible-community/antsibull-build#429

[felixfontein]

There is now an active vote for merging that PR: #107

Please vote until June 6, 2022! (This is only six days, as opposed to the regular seven days for voting. The reason is that Ansible 6.0.0rc1 is scheduled for June 6, so to avoid delaying it unnecessarily let's try to get this done until then :) )

[felixfontein]

I edited the post above since I noticed that there is no 6.0.0b3 release. The release next week is 6.0.0rc1. This is a bit more tight than I thought, and if something goes wrong we'll definitely need another release candidate.

[acozine]

+1 to offering users a way to tell which package version, as well as which core version, is installed on their machines.

[felixfontein]

I counted 7 steering committee +1 votes (mariolenz felixfontein russoz markuman briantist Andersson007 acozine) and 3 community +1 votes (cybette samccann Ompragash)

[mariolenz]

I counted 7 steering committee +1 votes (mariolenz felixfontein russoz markuman briantist Andersson007 acozine) and 3 community +1 votes (cybette samccann Ompragash)

Me too :-)

[Andersson007]

I counted 7 steering committee +1 votes (mariolenz felixfontein russoz markuman briantist Andersson007 acozine) and 3 community +1 votes (cybette samccann Ompragash)

I can confirm too:)

[felixfontein]

Awesome, thanks everyone! Then this is concluded :)

[felixfontein]

The latest Ansible 6.0.0rc1 release contains the CLI program. Just tested it :) I'm going to close this issue.