ghdl: ensure that version contains a valid string

[umarcor]

As commented in #58 (comment), ghdl --version currently shows GHDL 1.0-dev () [Dunoon edition]. That is because the configure/Makefile depend on sources being in a git repo for building the "version description string". However, git_clone removes any reference to git, including .git.

Optionally, envvar GHDL_DESC can be used for providing a fallback description string. That's what I did here. Anyway, feel free to use some better content.

[edbordin]

Sorry, I missed this for a while! There are other tools that have similar issues when there's no git metadata available. For yosys the git commit is injected with some ad-hoc code, but that mainly got attention because nmigen parses that version string. There are probably various other tools in this build with weird version strings too...

I'm not actually sure what the motivation originally was to strip the .git dir, the scripts already did it when I forked them and I never changed it. I'm not personally motivated to majorly overhaul any of it at the moment though.

If we're going to change this it's probably nice to identify the build a bit more specifically. One option would be to replicate what the GHDL makefile does by running something like this after git_clone:
export GHDL_DESC=$(git -C $UPSTREAM_DIR/$dir_name describe --dirty 2> /dev/null)
Another option would be to just add the datestamp with export GHDL_DESC="open-tool-forge$VERSION". Or I suppose you could have a combination of the two. I'm happy with any combination.

[umarcor]

I combined both of them. I'm not completely sure about what will the result look like, but it will be something we can identify.

[edbordin]

I tested the linux_x86_64 CI artifact while the CI build was finishing up and the version string looks like this:

$ ./ghdl --version
GHDL 1.0-dev (v0.37.0-1084-g59113550) [Dunoon edition] open-tool-forge.nightly-20201121
 Compiled with GNAT Version: 9.3.0
 mcode code generator
Written by Tristan Gingold.

Copyright (C) 2003 - 2020 Tristan Gingold.
GHDL is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

I'd say that's much better!

I didn't check the other platforms but I'm happy to risk it (seems unlikely they would look different to this and all the basic CI tests just passed). Thanks for your contribution, if you are happy with it I'll merge it!

[umarcor]

I was waiting for CI to pass. I tried doing it without the patch (by setting the newline in GHDL_DESC), but OSX would complain. It was quite a headache; but, in the end, I think that using the patch is much cleaner anyway.

Merge when you want 😉

EDIT

I tested it on Windows. So, the only risk is OSX; it's very low risk 😄 .

[edbordin]

Thanks again!