Rails 3 app, How to get GIT version and update website?

Question

I am deploying my rails 3 app using capistrano, and I want to get the git version (and date information) and update my website\'s footer with this.

How can I do this?

Answer 1

Long time ago I did this for subversion:
in an initializer I put a global

SVN_REVISION = `svn info | ruby -ne 'puts $1 if $_ =~ /^Revision: ([0-9]*)/'`

and in the application layout:

  ...
  <% unless SVN_REVISION.blank? -%>
  

    v<%= SVN_REVISION %>
  
  <% end -%>

with git you could change the global to something like:

git log -1 | ruby -ne 'puts $1 if $_ =~ %r{^Date:   (.+) \+\d+$}'

Now thinking about it, it may be better to:

• capistrano creates a configuration file (config/git_status.yml)
• the initializers parses the configuration and sets variables

I'm not sure, it's just an idea.