Bump a software project's VERSION, add the CHANGES, and tag with GIT

bumpversion.sh

#!/bin/bash

# works with a file called VERSION in the current directory,
# the contents of which should be a semantic version number
# such as "1.2.3"

# this script will display the current version, automatically
# suggest a "minor" version update, and ask for input to use
# the suggestion, or a newly entered value.

# once the new version number is determined, the script will
# pull a list of changes from git history, prepend this to
# a file called CHANGES (under the title of the new version
# number) and create a GIT tag.

if [ -f VERSION ]; then
    BASE_STRING=`cat VERSION`
    BASE_LIST=(`echo $BASE_STRING | tr '.' ' '`)
    V_MAJOR=${BASE_LIST[0]}
    V_MINOR=${BASE_LIST[1]}
    V_PATCH=${BASE_LIST[2]}
    echo "Current version : $BASE_STRING"
    V_MINOR=$((V_MINOR + 1))
    V_PATCH=0
    SUGGESTED_VERSION="$V_MAJOR.$V_MINOR.$V_PATCH"
    read -p "Enter a version number [$SUGGESTED_VERSION]: " INPUT_STRING
    if [ "$INPUT_STRING" = "" ]; then
        INPUT_STRING=$SUGGESTED_VERSION
    fi
    echo "Will set new version to be $INPUT_STRING"
    echo $INPUT_STRING > VERSION
    echo "Version $INPUT_STRING:" > tmpfile
    git log --pretty=format:" - %s" "v$BASE_STRING"...HEAD >> tmpfile
    echo "" >> tmpfile
    echo "" >> tmpfile
    cat CHANGES >> tmpfile
    mv tmpfile CHANGES
    git add CHANGES VERSION
    git commit -m "Version bump to $INPUT_STRING"
    git tag -a -m "Tagging version $INPUT_STRING" "v$INPUT_STRING"
    git push origin --tags
else
    echo "Could not find a VERSION file"
    read -p "Do you want to create a version file and start from scratch? [y]" RESPONSE
    if [ "$RESPONSE" = "" ]; then RESPONSE="y"; fi
    if [ "$RESPONSE" = "Y" ]; then RESPONSE="y"; fi
    if [ "$RESPONSE" = "Yes" ]; then RESPONSE="y"; fi
    if [ "$RESPONSE" = "yes" ]; then RESPONSE="y"; fi
    if [ "$RESPONSE" = "YES" ]; then RESPONSE="y"; fi
    if [ "$RESPONSE" = "y" ]; then
        echo "0.1.0" > VERSION
        echo "Version 0.1.0" > CHANGES
        git log --pretty=format:" - %s" >> CHANGES
        echo "" >> CHANGES
        echo "" >> CHANGES
        git add VERSION CHANGES
        git commit -m "Added VERSION and CHANGES files, Version bump to v0.1.0"
        git tag -a -m "Tagging version 0.1.0" "v0.1.0"
        git push origin --tags
    fi

fi

Nice! But why should we have a VERSION file?

Nice script! Thank you.

Thank you!

A question, out of curiosity: Why did you decide to make the default bump up MINOR instead of PATCH? (I’ve found the latter more practical, to do MINOR and MAJOR bumps manually.)

Nice script, also take a look at my one @jv-k/bump-version.sh.

I'm here because I just got this link generated by GitHub Copilot while writing a my own ./version.sh script for a python project.
Here is my script: https://gist.github.com/kaar/dc5514218fc5ecfdb608a32cfe021eb7