Semantic versioning automation

Question

After I've read this article and another ones, I figure out versioning is a programmer decision , so I believe CI system isn't able to understand which's version of this package ( CI system isn't able to understand whether the pulled commit is a patch, a new feature ).

However, a programmer isn't able to know how to link the patch (bug, feature and so on) to a release built number identification .

According to semantic versioning:

• increment the patch version (eg from 2.3.4 to 2.3.5) when you only release bug fixes and the like
• increment the minor version (eg from 1.3.2 to 1.4.0) when you add new features
• increment the major version (eg from 3.2.9 to 4.0.0) when you introduce breaking changes

My semantic verion is going to follow next pattern: 1.2.3+7489ab44d3 , where 1 is MAJOR version number, 2 is MINOR version number and 3 is patch or bug number. then the +7489ab44d3 will be the built job identification on CI system.

So, the first part of this pattern depends of an human brain and the last one is under a CI system.

I've read also, it would be possible to use an issue tracker system in order to sort out each issue under a some kind of information and provide it to CI system.

Which is the best way for providing an automation in order to achieve that?

Answer 1

We are using plugin to do it.

https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Version+Number+Plugin

We know what is the version based upon the branch name and based upon it we generate the appropriate build number.

Its a separate task in the build procedure and you can achieve it with several systems and plugins.