Regression rc2 -> rc3: simapp is missing the Tendermint version in RPC API

[webmaster128]

After migrating from simapp v0.40.0-rc2 to v0.40.0-rc3, the Tendermint version field is empty.

interchainio/simapp:v0.40.0-rc2:

curl -sS http://localhost:26657/status | jq .result.node_info.version
"0.34.0"

interchainio/simapp:v0.40.0-rc3:

$ curl -sS http://localhost:26657/status | jq .result.node_info.version
""

When doing the same against a tendermint/tendermint:v0.34.0-rc6 backend, we at least get the commit hash:

curl -sS http://localhost:11134/status | jq .result.node_info.version
"ca2c9df"

Tendermint images returned a version number up to approximately v0.34.0-rc5. I don't know why and how this change to a commit hash. This is not convenient to work with from a client, but at least we can work around this by mapping commit hashes to versions.

[tac0turtle]

tendermint migrated to getting the version from git describe at build time. I believe this will need to be added to the sdk as well:

VERSION := $(shell git describe --always)
LD_FLAGS = -X github.com/tendermint/tendermint/version.TMCoreSemVer=$(VERSION)

[webmaster128]

@marbar3778 Thanks for looking into this.

But woudn't VERSION := $(shell git describe --always) in this repo assign a Cosmos SDK version, not the Tendermint version?

[tac0turtle]

oh sorry I just copied from the Tendermint makefile. The app can set a string there as well.

[webmaster128]

The calling app should set the version string for a dependency? How can this be maintainable? Shouldn't the dependendency expose this information?

[tac0turtle]

VERSION := $(shell go list -m github.com/tendermint/tendermint | sed  's/ /\@/g')
LD_FLAGS = -X github.com/tendermint/tendermint/version.TMCoreSemVer=$(VERSION)

This is one way but agree it's a bit cumbersome.

[webmaster128]

I see. Every other project depending on Tendermint has this problem then.

I assume the original motivation was to move the version out of the Tendermint source code into a meta space, right? Typical problem of libs. No idea how to best achieve this in Go.

[tac0turtle]

This has been added to gaia. Documentation on doing is located here https://docs.tendermint.com/master/tendermint-core/rpc.html