matplotlib version error

[cyrixsimon]

Hi,

there is an error when determining the version of matplotlib.

>>> matplotlib.__version__
'0+unknown'

[jenshnielsen]

I cannot reproduce this in any of the versions that I tried.

In [2]: matplotlib.__version__
Out[2]: '1.5.1'

In [2]: matplotlib.__version__
Out[2]: '1.5.2rc2+19.g972266d'

In [2]: matplotlib.__version__
Out[2]: '2.0.0b1+44.g80052ff'

In [2]: matplotlib.__version__
Out[2]: '2.0.0b1+1682.ga72574d'

To resolve this issue you will have to provide some more information about your system and how you installed matplotlib. This is why we have an issue template asking for this information.

To help us understand and resolve your issue please check that you have provided
the information below.

- [ ] Matplotlib version, Python version and Platform (Windows, OSX, Linux ...)
- [ ] How did you install Matplotlib and Python (pip, anaconda, from source ...)
- [ ] If possible please supply a [Short, Self Contained, Correct, Example](http://sscce.org/)
      that demonstrates the issue i.e a small piece of code which reproduces the issue
      and can be run with out any other (or as few as possible) external dependencies.
- [ ] If this is an image generation bug attach a screenshot demonstrating the issue.
- [ ] If this is a regression (Used to work in an earlier version of Matplotlib), please 
      note where it used to work.

[cyrixsimon]

I get the following output for setup.py version.

python3.5 setup.py version
============================================================================
Edit setup.cfg to change the build options

BUILDING MATPLOTLIB
            matplotlib: yes [0+unknown]
                python: yes [3.5.1 (default, Jun 23 2016, 09:52:07)  [GCC
                        4.8.5]]
              platform: yes [linux]

REQUIRED DEPENDENCIES AND EXTENSIONS
                 numpy: yes [version 1.12.0.dev0+Unknown]
                   six: yes [using six version 1.10.0]
              dateutil: yes [using dateutil version 2.6.0a0]
           functools32: yes [Not required]
                  pytz: yes [using pytz version 2016.4]
                cycler: yes [using cycler version 0.10.0]
               tornado: yes [tornado was not found. It is required for the
                        WebAgg backend. pip/easy_install may attempt to
                        install it after matplotlib.]
             pyparsing: yes [using pyparsing version 2.1.6]
                libagg: yes [pkg-config information for 'libagg' could not
                        be found. Using local copy.]
              freetype: yes [version 2.5.5]
                   png: yes [version 1.6.8]
                 qhull: yes [pkg-config information for 'qhull' could not be
                        found. Using local copy.]

OPTIONAL SUBPACKAGES
           sample_data: yes [installing]
              toolkits: yes [installing]
                 tests: yes [nose 0.11.1 or later is required to run the
                        matplotlib test suite. Please install it with pip or
                        your preferred tool to run the test suite / using
                        unittest.mock]
        toolkits_tests: yes [nose 0.11.1 or later is required to run the
                        matplotlib test suite. Please install it with pip or
                        your preferred tool to run the test suite / using
                        unittest.mock]

OPTIONAL BACKEND EXTENSIONS
                macosx: no  [Mac OS-X only]
                qt5agg: no  [PySide2 not found; PyQt5 not found]
                qt4agg: no  [PySide not found; PyQt4 not found]
               gtk3agg: no  [Requires pygobject to be installed.]
             gtk3cairo: no  [Requires cairocffi or pycairo to be installed.]
                gtkagg: no  [Requires pygtk]
                 tkagg: yes [installing; run-time loading from Python Tcl /
                        Tk]
                 wxagg: no  [requires wxPython]
                   gtk: no  [Requires pygtk]
                   agg: yes [installing]
                 cairo: no  [cairocffi or pycairo not found]
             windowing: no  [Microsoft Windows only]

OPTIONAL LATEX DEPENDENCIES
                dvipng: no
           ghostscript: yes [version 9.15]
                 latex: no
               pdftops: no

OPTIONAL PACKAGE DATA
                  dlls: no  [skipping due to configuration]

running version
discarding 'HEAD -> master', no digits
likely tags: 
no suitable tags, using unknown + full revision id
got version from expanded keyword {'version': '0+unknown', 'error': 'no suitable tags', 'dirty': False, 'full-revisionid': 'f8ea2c51224e4bf41294dd907bdd9c3bacb12343'}
Version: 0+unknown
 full-revisionid: f8ea2c51224e4bf41294dd907bdd9c3bacb12343
 dirty: False
 error: no suitable tags

To you use git for version determining?

[jenshnielsen]

Yes we are using versioner which uses git to figure out tags such as 1.5.2rc2+19.g972266d' which means 1.5.2rc2 + 19 commits and commit id starting with g972266d

[cyrixsimon]

Ok this explains the behavior - I don't have git installed on this server.

[jenshnielsen]

How did you download matplotlib then? If you download the official pypi tarball i.e. from here https://pypi.python.org/pypi/matplotlib/1.5.1 it should work without git

[jenshnielsen]

As I understand it this only happens when you install a non release version without git installed, I don't think there is a good solution to that. Please ping to have this reopened if you can reproduce in any other way