Misc #21769: Use "vX.Y.Z" instead of "vX_Y_Z" as tag names on ruby.git

• Status: Open
• Assignee: -

[k0kubun (Takashi Kokubun)]

Proposal

• Use vX.Y.Z (e.g. v4.0.0) instead of vX_Y_Z (e.g. v4_0_0) as git tag names from Ruby 4.0.0
  • Also use - for preview/rc releases, e.g. v4.0.0-rc1 instead of v4_0_0_rc1

Motivation

• Inconsistent version formats and the need of conversion make the release workflow implementation a little complicated and hard to read.
• As a stable branch maintainer, I don't want to spend time figuring out which version format is right for each CLI.

Background

• Release tarball URLs already follow the proposed format (without v), e.g. ruby-4.0.0-preview2.tar.gz.
• Historically, we used vX_Y_Z because CVS didn't allow the use of . in tag names. We no longer need the workaround for Git.

  • https://www.gnu.org/software/trans-coord/manual/cvs/html_node/Tags.html
    Tag names must start with an uppercase or lowercase letter and can contain uppercase and lowercase letters, digits, ‘-’, and ‘_’.

[k0kubun (Takashi Kokubun)]

• Description updated (diff)

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

Is there a reason to prefer vX.Y.Z over X.Y.Z? The v tag prefix does seem more popular, though both are widely used. The historical reason for using _ in tags also applies to the reason the v prefix is used. If we are switching from _ to ., it seems reasonable to drop the unnecessary v prefix at the same time.

According to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2006265/is-there-a-standard-naming-convention-for-git-tags, vX.Y.Z was recommended in Version 1.0.0 of Semantic Versioning, but it is no longer recommended. The page has a good discussion of the pros and cons of the two approaches.

That being said, I'm in favor of the change from _ to ., either vX.Y.Z or X.Y.Z.

[k0kubun (Takashi Kokubun)]

I'm fine whether it's vX.Y.Z or X.Y.Z too. I'm personally used to vX.Y.Z used by rake release (ref), so I just didn't have a problem with the v prefix.