Re: Grub version variable in shell

["Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko" <phcoder@gmail.com>]

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On 11.03.2012 12:52, Andreas Born wrote:
> 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$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
>>    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt10
>> --hint-efi=hd0,gpt10 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt10  UUID
>> else
>>    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root UUID
>> fi
> Thank you, I get your point.
> Still I think version can be useful to exclude versions with bugs (or
> features) they do/(don't) have. For example on 1.98 I had to reexport
> all variables in every configfile. This was dirty and hard to maintain
> so I do not want to maintain this anymore. Instead of silently
> failing, I'd like to provide users of older versions with a very
> simple menu combined with a warning. (Usually in normal boot scenarios
> they're using my grub build anyway.) I don't see how this should be
> possible without my 'if keymap' hack. I think neither checking for a
> command existence nor a feature is a reliable method to always ensure
> a minimum version. Of course if you have a better idea, that's even
> more welcome.
Why not define "feature_bugXYZ_fixed" for bugs?
Which ones are missing in 2.00~beta1?
Then
if [ x$feature_bug_XYZ = xy ]; then
   <normal version>
else
   <bug-workaround version>
fi

>Did those feature variables even exist in 1.99?
They didn't but a missing variable is expanded to empty string so this
check works exactly as intended
> Maybe something like a grub_version_min command? And possibly *_max?
>
I don't see why you need it when you can check for features directly.
Distros often distribute older versions but with backported bugfixes and
check for exact features is better.

-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko



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