Version is not always updated when re-building from source

[rcorre]

Summary

I'm building helix from source, and noticed that the version reported by --version does not quite match the commit I'm building from.

[rrc@rrc-dev helix]$ git rev-parse HEAD
179673568df2a519fae2537fbc0053a64ecf3d8b
[rrc@rrc-dev helix]$ cargo install --path helix-term --locked
  Installing helix-term v24.3.0 (/home/rrc/src/helix/helix-term)
    Updating crates.io index
warning: package `libc v0.2.154` in Cargo.lock is yanked in registry `crates-io`, consider running without --locked
    Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 0.49s
   Replacing /home/rrc/.cargo/bin/hx
    Replaced package `helix-term v24.3.0 (/home/rrc/src/helix/helix-term)` with `helix-term v24.3.0 (/home/rrc/src/helix/helix-term)` (executable `hx`)
[rrc@rrc-dev helix]$ which hx
/home/rrc/.cargo/bin/hx
[rrc@rrc-dev helix]$ hx --version
helix 24.3 (f656b4f3)

I do see some files for helix-loader referencing that hash:

[rrc@rrc-dev helix]$ rg f656b4f3 -uuu
target/release/hx: binary file matches (found "\0" byte around offset 7)

target/release/deps/helix_loader-a08374f82e769eec.d
14:# env-dep:VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH=24.3 (f656b4f3)

I believe what's happening is that helix-loader is what defines the version that helix-term imports, so if you pull changes that don't include helix-loader and rebuild, the version remains unchanged.

[rrc@rrc-dev helix]$ rg VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH
helix-loader/build.rs
36:    println!("cargo:rustc-env=VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH={}", version);

helix-loader/src/lib.rs
9:pub const VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH: &str = env!("VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH");

helix-term/src/main.rs
3:use helix_loader::VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH;
73:        VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH,
91:        println!("helix {}", VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH);

helix-lsp/src/client.rs
9:use helix_loader::VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH;
678:                version: Some(String::from(VERSION_AND_GIT_HASH)),

Reproduction Steps

I tried this:

1. hx

I expected this to happen:

Instead, this happened:

Helix log

~/.cache/helix/helix.log

please provide a copy of `~/.cache/helix/helix.log` here if possible, you may need to redact some of the lines

Platform

Linux

Terminal Emulator

N/A

Installation Method

source

Helix Version

1796735

[dead10ck]

I'm not sure this matters very much. This should only happen on local cached builds, and if we "fixed" this so the commit hash was always accurate, then it would cause a ton of unnecessary compile times, since helix-loader sits at the top of the crate dependency tree, so everything underneath it has to get rebuilt too

[rcorre]

That's fair. My thinking was that "local cached builds" would be common for those who regularly stay up to date with main, and would also represent helix's most active user base in terms of trying new features and reporting bugs, which could lead to confusing bug reports.

It's also a bit confusing as a user, I spent a while installing and uninstalling helix, thinking cargo install wasn't actually updating my binary.

[pascalkuthe]

we already instruct cargo to rebuild if the HEAD commit changes but I think there is a bug in the logic