Release engineering

Migration of existing SVN checkout

The existing checkout of the 'fixes_2_2' branch can be switched to the release tag using SVN command "switch", specifically its first variant (see below). However, it's recommended to build in exported sources, not in checked out version.

~/fpc>>> svn sw --help
switch (sw): Update the working copy to a different URL.
usage: 1. switch URL [PATH]
       2. switch --relocate FROM TO [PATH...]

 1. Update the working copy to mirror a new URL within the
 repository.
    This behaviour is similar to 'svn update', and is the way to move
    a working copy to a branch or tag within the same repository.

 2. Rewrite working copy URL metadata to reflect a syntactic change
 only.
    This is used when repository's root URL changes (such as a scheme
    or hostname change) but your working copy still reflects the same
    directory within the same repository.

Create libgdb.a and or binutils

• If you have problems building recent binutils or libgdb's on any *nix, and the error is related to intl.h or libintl.a, reconfigure using ../<srcdir>/configure --disable-nls (assuming you use a separate builddir)
• Some cygwin hints:
  • ensure you've installed gcc, bison and flex
  • use
    ./configure --disable-ide --disable-libgui --disable-install-libgui
    to configure

General notes about release building

To create a build, you always have to start with compiler from the last previous major release (e.g. 2.0.0 for all 2.0.x and 2.2.0 releases, 2.2.0 for 2.2.x, etc.), or the last previous minor release (i.e. you can use 2.0.2 for building 2.0.4).

Convert the faq.adp to faq.htm and faq.txt

The faq's in fpcbuild/install/doc are generated from the faq.adp in the html-repository. (It's a good idea too check if the faq.adp is still up-to-date before converting it.) To do the conversion, check out the html-repository and do a 'make all'. Then create the faq.htm and .txt by:

 ./adp2html faq.adp -m external-master.adp -p maindir=http://www.freepascal.org/ -p x=.var > faq.htm
 w3m -dump faq.htm > faq.txt

It could be that you have to install w3m first. If the conversions are succesfull update these files in the fpcbuild-repository.

OS/CPU specific release engineering

FreeBSD

FreeBSD specific Release Engineering

Linux

Get sources, usually done with a command like:

 svn export http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/fpcbuild/tags/release_2_0_2 fpcbuild

Get libgdb for your CPU from ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/contrib/libgdb/, extract it into fpcbuild/fpcsrc/ preserving pathes. Before building please check for files libiberty.a, libopcode.a and libbfd.a. These files are often installed in directories like /usr/lib. The compiler must not be able to find them! The reason is that otherwise the compiler might use the preinstalled ones instead of the ones you put in the libgdb directory, and the preinstalled ones are not compatible with libgdb.a. If the compiler finds and uses these libraries in /usr/lib, the IDE will crash on any debugging attempt.

Get the most recent docs package from the ftp site, it's called docs-pdf.tar.gz and copy it into the fpcbuild/ directory.

Change into fpcbuild/. Now become root, or use fakeroot, then execute

 install/makepack

Building an rpm

To build an RPM, change into fpcbuild and execute

 make rpm

the documentation will be built as well and that requires a working Tex installation. To prevent the documentation from being built, execute

 make rpm NODOCS=1

Building a deb

To build an Debian Package, please refer to Debian_Packaging page. Here are quick hints :

- Ensure that you have at least installed the following debian packages: dpkg-dev, fakeroot

- Modify the fpcbuild/install/debian/changelog file adding the following

 fpc (x.y.z-b) unstable; urgency=low
 
 * release candidate build
 
-- First Last <mail@address.ext>  Thu, 07 Jul 2006 23:44:00 +0100
 

where b is package building number. If b = 0, then packages will be named substituting b by the building date, otherwise it will be conserved. Please note that z could be a number but also a word like 2rc1

- change into fpcbuild and execute

 make deb [GDBLIBDIR=<path/${OS_TARGET}/${CPU_TARGET}>]

the documentation will be built as well and that requires a working Tex installation. To prevent the documentation from being built, execute

 make deb NODOCS=1

Darwin (Mac OS X) - Fink

Files

1. fpc.info
2. fpc-doc.info
3. No patch files are required.

submitted and waiting for acceptance:

1. fpc-config.info
2. fpc.info
3. fpc-doc.info
4. fpc-crossppc.info
5. fpc-win32.info
6. fpc-i386-linux.info

Bootstrap Compiler

Building the package is based on a bootstrap compiler. Separate bootstrap compilers for i386 and powerpc would be possible, but a universal bootstrap compiler has been choosen, since it makes the installation script simpler. The increased filesize (about twice the size of a single separate bootstrap compiler) of the bootstrap compiler is considered negligible compared to the size of the complete source tarball. Reverting this decision should be doable by well chosen names for the bootstrap compiler tar balls, such as fpc-%v.%m-darwin.bootstrap.tar.bz2, with %m being powerpc and i386. The universal bootstrap compiler is created from the two separate compilers using "lipo". The file size is reduced by applying "strip" on the binaries. Although it is possible to use the previous stable release of fpc as a bootstrap compiler, it is better to use the same version, because "make cycle" becomes faster, since only two instead of three cycles are performed.

History:

Version 2.0.4 was powerpc and Rosetta emulation only, so only a powerpc bootstrap compiler (ppcppc) was needed.

Starting with version 2.2.0, both native i386 (ppc386) and powerpc (ppcppc) compilers were supported.

Usually Required Adjustments for New Releases

These fields in the file fpc.info usually need changes (examples from version 2.1.2, a beta version of 2.2):

Version: 2.1.2
Source: ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/beta/%v/source/fpcbuild-%v.source.tar.gz
Source-MD5: a2ee4db22301cdcbda07185a7b6679b2
Source2: ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/beta/%v/source/fpc-%v.universal-darwin.bootstrap.tar.bz2
Source2-MD5: ca5e29e3683ff6d5caa491c0adf4635e

The MD5 checksums can be obtained from the error message when fetching the sources with fink or with the terminal command md5sum.

The fpc-doc.info file also needs according changes in the Source and Source-MD5 fields.

History

2.2.2 extra package for the config file. cross compilers for win32 and linux. execution of tests enabled.

2.2.1 interims version for lazarus 0.9.24

2.2.0 first version with native Intel code

2.0.4 first version in stable tree (powerpc and Rosetta emulation only)

1.9.8 initial version in unstable tree

Future Plans

1. fpc 2.2.4:
   1. 64 bit version for Darwin?
   2. arm crosscompiler?
2. prepare lazarus 0.9.26 on the basis of fpc 2.2.2

Source zip generation

Change to a temporary directory and execute

 fpcbuild/install/makesource <release version>

e.g.

 fpcbuild/install/makesource 2.0.2

Documentation building and LaTeX limits

A lot of TeTeX distributions are configured to never use more than a very small amount of memory. The values chosen are more of the 486 era (several MBs, while now 256MB is considered "entry level").

The Free Pascal documentation is fairly large, and uses a lot of labels for convenient hyperlinked PDFs and thus hits this limit.

This can be remedied by modiying the save_size line in texmf.conf to

 save_size=10000

Usually, you can also do this by environment variable.

export save_size=10000
pdflatex rtl.tex

Packaging system

See Packaging System and dividing FPC - Lazarus into packages

Building the official fpc-packages

Create directories on ftp

1. Create the following structure on ftp: (check which platforms are released for this version)

• {version}
  • docs
  • source
    • separate
      • tar
      • zip
      • short
  • arm-linux
  • arm-wince
  • i386-freebsd
  • i386-go32v2
    • separate
  • i386-linux
    • deb
    • rpm
  • i386-netware
  • i386-netwlibc
  • i386-os2
    • separate
  • i386-win32
  • powerpc-linux
  • powerpc-macos
  • powerpc-morphos
  • powerpc64-linux
  • sparc-linux
  • x86_64-linux
    • deb
    • rpm
  • x86_64-win64

1. Copy the extra files (asld*.zip, gdb*.zip, make*.zip) in i386-os2\separate and i386-gov32v2\separate from previous release (unless updated with new versions)

Update the version-number

Version number of the Makefiles

Update the version numbers in all Makefile.fpc files containing version=... (plus regenerate all corresponding Makefiles). Do this for the fpc and fpcbuild-repositories. This can be done using the updmkver script from within the root of both repositories. The FPC_DIR environment variable has to be set to the fpcsrc-path:

 export FPC_DIR=....../fpcbuild/fpcsrc
 cd fpcbuild
 install/updmkver {version} 
 cd ../fpc
 ../fpcbuild/install/updmkver {version}

Replace {version} with the version number, for example 2.2.4 or 2.2.4rc1

Version number in the source & documentation files

The version number has to be updated in the following places.

FPCBuild:

• /install/doc/readme.txt
• /install/doc/whatsnew.txt
• /install/debian/changelog

FPCDocs: (there is only a trunk-version)

• /docs/fpc.sty (macro fpcversion)

FPC:

• /installer/install.dat (header)
• /installer/install.pas (installer version)
• /compiler/version.pas

Tag version

If the changes of the version-numbers are committed, use the createbranche in fpcbuild to create a 'release_{version}' tag in svn. Use underscores in the version, instead of dots!

 ./createbranche.sh tags/release_2_1_2
 ./createbranche.sh tags/release_2_2_4_rc1

Create the source zips

Create all the source zips.

Once the version is tagged the makesource script in fpcbuild/install can create the fpc-{version}.source.tar.gz and fpc-{version}.source.zip. To build the fpc-{version}.source.tar.gz and fpc-{version}.source.zip use the makefpcbuild script. Before you run the scripts go to a temporary directory and become root or use fakeroot. If you want to create the sourcefile from a specific branch, you can provide it using the -svnpath parameter For example:

 fakeroot
 fpcbuild/install/makesource 2.2.0
 fpcbuild/install/makefpcbuild -svnpath branches/release_2_2_4_rc1 2.2.4rc1

Create bootstrap compiler archives

• darwin (fink)

From ppc386 and ppcppc create ppcuniversal using lipo, create .tar.bz2 archive (full name: fpc-version.universal-darwin.bootstrap.tar.bz2) and place it in the source dir.

Testing a release

In general:

1. check all zip/deb/rpm etc files
2. try the installer (if available)
3. make sure readme.txt & whatsnew.txt are for the current version
4. run all executables
5. make cycle with newly installed binaries and sources
6. run testsuite
7. IDE
   1. open the installed hello.pp in IDE
   2. make a minor change in the demo in IDE & save it
   3. view documentation in IDE, traverse 2-3 pages (at least one with screenshots)
   4. compile the demo file in IDE
   5. run the demo within the IDE (debugger)
8. Documentation (open all files)
   1. Check PDF documentation (if available)
   2. Check HTML documentation (if available)
   3. Check TXT documentation (if available)

Target-specific:

1. GO32v2
   1. dos???.zip installation
   2. dos???full.zip installation (over the previously installed dos???.zip to simulate updates)
2. OS/2
   1. os2???.zip installation
   2. os2???full.zip installation (over the previously installed os2???.zip to simulate updates)
3. Win32
   1. Run installer
4. x86_64-linux and i386-linux
   1. Test a .rpm install
   2. Test a .deb install
5. darwin (fink)
   1. fink install fpc
   2. fink install fpc-doc