Version package helps to automate process of versioning Go executables by using information from git repository and build environment and assigning them during compilation using -X importpath.name=value flag of go link tool.

v0.6.3+35-dev-0788ff2 (2016/02/05-22:10) built on furby@beast (go1.5.1 linux-amd64) at Sat Feb 06 09:52:22 UTC 2016

• version.Number
  • the most recent annotated tag
  • if the last commit doesn't point to the tag, +N is added where N is number of commits since the tag
  • if the working tree is dirty, -dev is added
• version.CommitHash
  • 7 hexadecimal digits representing abbreviated object name
• version.CommitStamp
  • time of the last commit
• version.BuildUser
  • user that built the executable
• version.BuildHost
  • host that the executable was built on
• version.BuildStamp
  • time of building the executable
• version.Long
  • all information concatenated into long form

1. Run go get -u github.com/TrueFurby/version to download this package.
2. In the directory of your main package, run ln -s $GOPATH/src/github.com/TrueFurby/version to create a symlink to the version package. This will provide cleaner way for importing and compiling.
3. Use go build -ldflags "$(sh version/ldflags.sh)" when building your executable to assign all version information.
4. Now you can simply refer to the exported variables which will contain assigned information wherever you need them.

package main

import "yourproject/version"

func main() {
    printVersion = flag.Bool("version", false, "print version")
    flag.Parse()
    
    if *printVersion {
        fmt.Println(version.Long)
        os.Exit(0)
    }
}