How do I embed Mercurial tags into my C/C++ code?

Question

I would like to know if there is a way to embed Mercurial tags into my C/C++ code.

Basically I would like the tag string, which will end up being a release number (

Answer 1

We use a macro for this

#define CVS(a) static const volatile char *rcsid = a;

....
CVS("$Id$")

CVS automagically expands $Id$. I assume this is what mercurial tags work as well.

Then we can use the strings command to find the exact version of each file in the executable / library etc.

You could use something similar.

static const volatile char *rcsid = "$Id"; //or whatever mercurial tag you want

int main() {

    .....
    std::cout << "Version is " << rcsid << std::endl;
}