Static Version number in package

[marcogario]

When running a dev version, we use git to compute the version number. This works ok if we are running pysmt from the git checkout.

However, if we do pip install of a dev version, this can fail. This PR provides a default value for this.
This is more of a temporary fix and a principled solution would be appreciated.

[mikand]

Doesn't this need to be un-indented?

[mikand]

I think there is an error in the code, if there is no exception the VERSION and __version__ variables are not set

[mikand]

As a principled solution, can't we simply overwrite the __init__.py file with simple constants when we do the deployment on pypi?

[marcogario]

As suggested. This creates a new __init__.py file to hardcode the version number. We could be nicer and just replace the current content, but there is little reason to do so now.

I also removed dependencies from the git_version function from the installer.

[marcogario]

I merged this to fix the error on master. Still would like your opinion on the approach. In particular, I think we might be using two different version numbers.

My interpretation of the PEP 440 (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0440/#pre-release-spelling) is that the development of the version 0.8.1 should be labeled 0.8.1.devX. This is consistent with the way I first created the versioning string in init.py, but not with the git numbering, since git takes a post-release approach, and gives a number based on the previous tag.

I think using 0.8.1.devX clearly identifies that we are working on 0.8.1. I would probably say we can change the script in make_distrib.sh to replace the last digit of VERSION with the number of commits since the tag as obtained from git describe. I.e., even if git describe would provide 0.8.0-X-YYYY as output, we only consider the value X, and create 0.8.1.devX as version number.

[marcogario]

See commit d8196b for the versioning consistent with the point above. This has not been merged, yet.

[mikand]

I agree. So each time we make a release M.m.v we tag in git and update the default VERSION value in __init__.py by setting M'.m'.v' and we count the commits in master after the tag creating a version number M'.m'.v'.devN. The only question is how do we determine M', m' and v' before we make the actual changes... So, how do I know if the next iteration will be a major, minor or version update?