When checking for rustc versions, we've found its --version --verbose output very useful:

froydnj@hawkeye:~$ rustc --version --verbose
rustc 1.14.0 (e8a012324 2016-12-16)
binary: rustc
commit-hash: e8a0123241f0d397d39cd18fcc4e5e7edde22730
commit-date: 2016-12-16
host: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
release: 1.14.0
LLVM version: 3.9

It would be splendid if cargo supported the same form of output (obviously deleting things like the LLVM version, but perhaps there are other pertinent things that could be output). The --version --verbose output is somewhat easier to parse if you want to get at things like exact version number without worrying to deeply about the form of your regexes, for instance. The consistency between the two tools is also welcome.