Tools do not support --version flag properly #398

Transferred from: https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15245

User @WebDrake reported (2015-10-25 13:19:03 CET):

None of the D tools adequately supports the version flag:

(1) rdmd supports the --version flag but gives only the day of build (e.g. 20151025) rather than the actual version tag;

(2) catdoc, changed, dget, dustmite and tolf all exit with an uncaught exception;

(3) ddmangle reports an unrecognized option and prints help.

Since the tools repository is subject to similar version tagging to dmd, druntime and phobos, it would seem appropriate that the tools support a --version flag with similar output to dmd --version.

User @CyberShadow responded (2015-10-25 23:49:22 CET):

At least DustMite is a separate project that is included with DMD for convenience, thus is not tied to the DMD release schedule. It does not have a version because it has no releases - a release is effectively a push to GitHub.

User @WebDrake responded (2015-10-25 23:59:39 CET):

It does not have a version because it has no releases - a release is effectively a push to GitHub.

... and yet the repo is tagged with dmd release numbers.

I'm not suggesting the tools have to be tied to dmd release schedule, but some kind of support of --version would make sense, even if it's just to report the hash and date of the most recent commit.

User @CyberShadow responded (2015-10-26 00:01:32 CET):

... and yet the repo is tagged with dmd release numbers.

The DustMite repo isn't. The code in the D-P-L tools repo is a copy from https://github.com/CyberShadow/DustMite , updated periodically.