[Python-Dev] Expose Subversion revision number to Python

Mon Dec 19 23:22:10 CET 2005

John Pinner wrote:
> It's also the only thing that identifes the revision/build precisely,
> allowing reversion to a known state.

How so?
- It doesn't identify a build precisely: you may have dynamically-loaded
 modules that get rebuild even though the build number doesn't change.
 So a single build number may refer to different sets of code.
- it doesn't allow reversion to a known state: I can't even find a
 meaningful interpretation of such a claim. How would the build allow
 to revert anything? And what is that anything that it would allow to
 revert? Reverting doesn't work for source changes, nor for configure
 options (svn revert allows to do the former, in a limited way; svk
 allows that in a broader way).
Regards,
Martin