Added mlx::core::version() returning std::string(MLX_VERSION)

[stemann]

Proposed changes

Added function for getting the MLX version built.

Checklist

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• I have read the CONTRIBUTING document
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• I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works
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[awni]

Just curious, what do you use this for?

I'm not opposed to making the version available in the C++ API. I'm just wondering if we should make it a constexpr or a preprocessor macro so that it can be used at compile time as well. Either way it might be good to change the format to be a single number like MAJORMINORPATCH rather than MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH so it can easily be used in conditionals.

[stemann]

It’s mostly for convenience, e.g. for a user of MLX.jl (Julia),

• where the user is using MLX.jl version X
• dependent on MLX C version Y,
• where MLX.jl has an indirect dependency via MLX C version Y on MLX version Z,

that the user can more easily check the version (Z - and Y would also be nice) - or write version dependent code (if that should be necessary) - without importing the Julia package manager (Pkg.jl) as a dependency.

[stemann]

Regarding the format, I was actually considering to do it like LibTorch, with separate identifiers for major, minor, and patch - in addition to the string version ("MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH") - and the numeric MAJORMINORPATCH.

It one puts the version in the CMake project, CMake should take care of splitting it up into major, minor, and patch.

[awni]

I think that's a good idea! Those should be macros and can be used at compile time. I like their naming scheme also we could adapt to MLX. Do you want to do that in this diff?

[stemann]

I'll look into it :-)