Am 11.03.2012 03:51, schrieb Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko:
On 11.03.2012 03:40, Andreas Born wrote:
Hi,
it would be great to have a variable like version or grub_version in
the shell. Sorry, if there is already such an option and I didn't find
it. But I only saw cpu and platform as well as the feature variables.
This is useful, if you want to use some new feature or don't want to
use some ugly workaround anymore, which you needed for an older version.
We don't use grub_version because it would give only very approximate
idea of features supported and so only marginally useful and is likely
to make devs use suboptimal method. Instead we define variables like
feature_foo. Good example is from root setting code:
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt10
--hint-efi=hd0,gpt10 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt10 UUID
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root UUID
fi
Thank you, I get your point.
Still I think version can be useful to exclude versions with bugs (or
features) they do/(don't) have. For example on 1.98 I had to reexport
all variables in every configfile. This was dirty and hard to maintain
so I do not want to maintain this anymore. Instead of silently failing,
I'd like to provide users of older versions with a very simple menu
combined with a warning. (Usually in normal boot scenarios they're using
my grub build anyway.) I don't see how this should be possible without
my 'if keymap' hack. I think neither checking for a command existence
nor a feature is a reliable method to always ensure a minimum version.
Of course if you have a better idea, that's even more welcome.
Maybe something like a grub_version_min command? And possibly *_max?
Apart from that I guess it would be nice to have such a variable to
display the version someplace or to check it. Yes, I know it is already
displayed in multiple places, but I don't think in gfxmenus.
Did those feature variables even exist in 1.99?
Currently, I'm doing a check like 'if keymap' to show a minimal menu
to pre-1.99 users with a warning that they're version is too old
instead of giving them garbage if at all. But that check does not feel
really reliable nor clean. ;)
Especially given the recent discussion regarding backwards
incompatible changes, this would be a really big help even if they're
only small changes. But I imagine there are other uses too. The early
there is such a variable the more useful it is, but I wouldn't
consider it critical.
On the other hand it's quite hard to parse a version string on the
grub shell, especially if distributions choose to change it to some
Brainf**k imitation. Or they give the code a major revamp and then
don't change it. Well, maybe grub could get a Brainf**k parser at
least. :D
For completeness two-line patch attached. (Untested)
Andreas Born
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