Actual git version is not displayed for `platform_packages`

What kind of issue is this?

• PlatformIO Core. If you’ve found a bug, please provide an information below.

---

Configuration

Operating system: Fedora Linux 35 (Container Image)

PlatformIO Version (platformio --version): PlatformIO Core, version 5.2.5a1

Description of problem

Given the following platformio.ini

[env]
platform = espressif8266@3.2.0
framework = arduino
platform_packages =
    platformio/framework-arduinoespressif8266 @ git+https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino.git
; notice that there's no version pin, it fetches the master branch

[env:d1_mini]
board = d1_mini

Extra package override is successfully fetched into ~/.platformio/packages/framework-arduinoespressif8266@src-31d658a59f41540201fc3726a1394910/ and reported as version 3.1.0-dev+sha.42aa0e6d However, manually changing the commit by using git checkout 55ef3e73978ad010d44ad7e4c9bd4b4f32455989 does not seem to affect the version displayed in the PACKAGES list when doing pio run, and instead the .git/.piopm metadata file “version” field is used (from the installation time).

$ pio run
Processing d1_mini (platform: espressif8266@3.2.0; board: d1_mini; framework: arduino)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Verbose mode can be enabled via `-v, --verbose` option
CONFIGURATION: https://docs.platformio.org/page/boards/espressif8266/esp12e.html
PLATFORM: Espressif 8266 (3.2.0) > Espressif ESP8266 ESP-12E
HARDWARE: ESP8266 80MHz, 80KB RAM, 4MB Flash
PACKAGES:
 - framework-arduinoespressif8266 3.1.0-dev+sha.42aa0e6d
 - tool-esptool 1.413.0 (4.13)
 - tool-esptoolpy 1.30000.201119 (3.0.0)
 - toolchain-xtensa 2.100300.210717 (10.3.0)
^CBuild interrupted.
$ git -C ~/.platformio/packages/framework-arduinoespressif8266@src-31d658a59f41540201fc3726a1394910/ rev-parse HEAD
55ef3e73978ad010d44ad7e4c9bd4b4f32455989

Shouldn’t the package manager run git rev-parse HEAD (or track .git/HEAD changes) and use that value instead of version saved in the .piopm? Or, at least attempt to refresh it. I have noticed inconsistent version reports at the esp8266/Arduino repo when user has master-branch package configured, it would be nice to know the actual revision of the repo without asking the user to go to the ~/.platformio/packages dir and run git command manually 😃

(and I assume the same behaviour for lib_deps, but I have not tried it)

[mcspr]

I will, as soon as I’ll get to the PC

[mcspr]

I forgot to add, calling git rev-parse HEAD or another command via subprocess is a very expensive operation.

Not necessarily true? If you mean using subprocess, perhaps. git rev-parse HEAD is not rev-list and is extremely cheap operation, since our only goal is to just retrieve the hash.

Notice that we could also read the .git/HEAD file instead of calling anything. It contains either the hash or the ref path. But, we’d need to implement part of git logic ourselves

> git clone https://github.com/git/git
> cd git
> cat .git/HEAD
ref: refs/heads/master
> cat .git/refs/heads/master
805e0a68082a217f0112db9ee86a022227a9c81b
> git checkout 805e0a68082a217f0112db9ee86a022227a9c81b
Note: switching to '805e0a68082a217f0112db9ee86a022227a9c81b'.
...
> cat .git/HEAD
805e0a68082a217f0112db9ee86a022227a9c81b