diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 9b0279bcb92..87519fa2bb9 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -355,6 +355,8 @@ Release 0.21.0 - Unreleased
                (Daniel Ploeg via Stack)
    HBASE-2589  TestHRegion.testWritesWhileScanning flaky on trunk
                (Todd Lipcon via Stack)
+   HBASE-2590  Failed parse of branch element in saveVersion.sh
+               (Benoît Sigoure via Stack)
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-1760  Cleanup TODOs in HTable
diff --git a/src/saveVersion.sh b/src/saveVersion.sh
index 9607daa2cf9..baae4e27793 100755
--- a/src/saveVersion.sh
+++ b/src/saveVersion.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
+# This file is used to generate the annotation of package info that
+# records the user, url, revision and timestamp.
+
 # Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 # contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 # this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
@@ -15,12 +18,6 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
-
-# This file is used to generate the annotation of package info that
-# records the user, url, revision and timestamp.
-
-# Copied from hadoop core r740386
-
 unset LANG
 unset LC_CTYPE
 version=$1
@@ -39,15 +36,12 @@ else
   revision="Unknown"
   url="file://$cwd"
 fi
-mkdir -p $outputDirectory/org/apache/hadoop/hbase
-cat << EOF | \
-  sed -e "s/VERSION/$version/" -e "s/USER/$user/" -e "s/DATE/$date/" \
-      -e "s|URL|$url|" -e "s/REV/$revision/" \
-      > $outputDirectory/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/package-info.java
+mkdir -p "$outputDirectory/org/apache/hadoop/hbase"
+cat >"$outputDirectory/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/package-info.java" <<EOF
 /*
  * Generated by src/saveVersion.sh
  */
-@VersionAnnotation(version="VERSION", revision="REV", 
-                         user="USER", date="DATE", url="URL")
+@VersionAnnotation(version="$version", revision="$revision",
+                         user="$user", date="$date", url="$url")
 package org.apache.hadoop.hbase;
 EOF