`git describe`

[René J.V. Bertin]

>From the ChangeLog

>    - Added macports_version to the Portfile execution context, to allow
>       checking the current MacPorts version in Portfiles.
>       (cal in r134511)

Right now I can only think of 1 important reason why Portfiles might want to check for the MacPorts version, and that's to detect older MacPorts versions. Anything else can probably be caught with "we only support running the latest version" (be it the latest release or the latest master/head).

Wouldn't this feature plead for some form of synchronisation of macports_version in master with the one in the release branch? (How to handle the detection of a master pseudo-release version and compare it to actual releases is a follow-up question.)

R.