JCA logs incorrect version number

[ralphlange]

JCA always logs its version as

VERSION : Channel Access Server in Java [Java] v1.1.D1

It should use the Maven project version instead.

[shroffk]

I think we need remove the explicit definition of the version and find a way to automatically import it from the pom.

[ralphlange]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3697449/retrieve-version-from-maven-pom-xml-in-code

[shroffk]

There is a very heavy Version class https://github.com/epics-base/jca/blob/master/src/core/gov/aps/jca/Version.java in jca which makes each part of the version number accessible as an int.

I don't see this class used anywhere except to print the version number as a string. Can I refactor this class to be simpler with a single function to get he complete version as a String.

@kasemir am I missing some other use of this?

[kasemir]

I'm pretty sure the original C implementation of channel access included some handling of older protocol versions, if (version.major < ...)..
If you don't see that being done in the java implementation, then I'd say it's OK to simplify the Version class.
It's unlikely that we'll rush in to make it compatible with EPICS 2.x at this time.
There is a tiny chance that we'll eventually add support for IPv6, or maybe some variant of DBE_PROPERTY or array size handling, but in that case we can just add some auto-configured "supports_xxx" flag instead of a less readable if (version.major > ...)..

[ralphlange]

A popular simplified way of providing numerical comparison options is to create a single integer number where every version number component (except the major one) gets exactly two digits.
This obviously only works for a fixed set of components and limits each component to numbers 0-99. (Shouldn't be a problem.)

1.0.0 = 10000
3.12.4 = 31204
...

[shroffk]

@ralphlange I am hoping to do a new release today... do you think you can look at the PR #77
or should I just release and we add this fix in the next release

[shroffk]

This should be fixed with the #77