[U-Boot] [PATCH][RFC] Update U-Boot's build timestamp on every compile

Stefan Roese
2008-10-21T14:57:05Z

On Tuesday 21 October 2008, Peter Tyser wrote:
> > Why would that be confusing? It seems natural to me that time changes
> > when you do several things sequentially. If a board used
> > __TIME__/__DATE__ in more than one location, then the board
> > maintainer either did this intentionally (and thus wants to acchieve
> > this result), or he did it without thinking, in which case it is
> > obviously not an important issue to him).
>
> I agree that its not an important issue, but that's not to say it
> hasn't/won't confused customers/developers. eg the first time I noticed
> it, it fooled me into thinking my flash wasn't properly programmed after
> updating u-boot.

Happend to me a few times as well. So I like your patch.

> > > the build time were printed in common/lcd.c, it would not be identical
> > > to the time printed on the serial port since lcd.c was not compiled at
> > > the same time as cpu/mpc8xx/start.S.
> >
> > If you care about reliable version information, use the git based ID
> > strings.
>
> I use git, but its version strings only change when commits occur. I
> think having an accurate build time stamp would be a nice feature.
> FWIW, Linux handles this "issue" very similarly to my proposed solution
> so that it can have its pretty banner. It even takes it a step further
> and gives a specific compile number (#15):
>
> Linux version 2.6.23.17 (ptyser at ptyser) (gcc version 4.3.1
> (crosstool-NG-xes) ) #15 SMP Wed Aug 6 11:45:55 CDT 2008
>
>
> I know this patch isn't a big deal, but I think it would be a valuable
> change. If others don't agree I'll drop the issue.

As mentioned above, I think your patch is an improvement. So why not accept
it?

Acked-by: Stefan Roese <sr@denx.de>

Best regards,
Stefan

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