How do I specify a __version__ of a Python package?

[Peter Bittner]

It's not clear from the documentation how a package maintainer should specify the version string, so that PBR automatically detects it for setuptools.

My habit is to put a code like this into the `<package_name>/__init__.py` file:

    """
    Package description (i.e. __doc__ is parsed in setup.py)
    """
    __author__ = 'Author Name'
    __email__ = '<email address hidden>'
    __license__ = 'GPLv3'
    __url__ = 'https://github.com/example/repository'
    __version__ = '0.1.2.dev1'

While it may be debatable whether to include author, email, url and license information I guess it's widespread to include `__version__` in <package>/__init__.py (when you do it the right way, i.e. have no other code in the file).

Parsing <package_name>.__doc__ for auto-generating a package description, optionally overridden in setup.cfg, may also make sense for package quality and help to reduce clutter in Python package projects.