1.4 Version Information

These facilities provide information about which version of Emacs is in use.

Command: emacs-version &optional here

This function returns a string describing the version of Emacs that is running. It is useful to include this string in bug reports.

(emacs-version)
  ⇒ "GNU Emacs 24.5.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.16)
             of 2015-06-01"

If here is non-nil, it inserts the text in the buffer before point, and returns nil. When this function is called interactively, it prints the same information in the echo area, but giving a prefix argument makes here non-nil.

Variable: emacs-build-time

The value of this variable indicates the time at which Emacs was built. It is a list of four integers, like the value of current-time (see Time of Day).

emacs-build-time
     ⇒ (20614 63694 515336 438000)

Variable: emacs-version

The value of this variable is the version of Emacs being run. It is a string such as "23.1.1". The last number in this string is not really part of the Emacs release version number; it is incremented each time Emacs is built in any given directory. A value with four numeric components, such as "22.0.91.1", indicates an unreleased test version.

Variable: emacs-major-version

The major version number of Emacs, as an integer. For Emacs version 23.1, the value is 23.

Variable: emacs-minor-version

The minor version number of Emacs, as an integer. For Emacs version 23.1, the value is 1.