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1 | =head1 How to write a perldelta |
2 | ||
3 | This is intended as a guide for how to write a perldelta. There has never | |
4 | been a formal specification - the working rule is "fake up a document that | |
5 | looks something close to the existing perldeltas". So if it's unclear how | |
6 | do to do something, see if it's been done before, and if the approach works | |
7 | there, steal it. | |
8 | ||
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9 | =head2 Template |
10 | ||
11 | Note there is a file F<Porting/perldelta_template> which contains a | |
12 | skeleton version of a perldelta.pod file, which should normally be copied | |
13 | in at the start of a new release. | |
14 | ||
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15 | =head2 Style |
16 | ||
17 | Pod is more a physical markup language, rather than a logical markup language. | |
18 | Despite that it has some built in conventions. B<Stick to them>: | |
19 | ||
20 | =over 4 | |
21 | ||
22 | =item * C<FE<lt>E<gt>> is for File | |
23 | ||
24 | =item * C<CE<lt>E<gt>> is for Code | |
25 | ||
26 | =item * C<LE<lt>E<gt>> is for Link | |
27 | ||
28 | =back | |
29 | ||
30 | Whilst modules could also be links, usually in the context of the perldelta | |
31 | the reference is to code C<use>ing them, rather than something within their | |
32 | documentation. | |
33 | ||
34 | Be consistent in how bugs are referenced. One style is | |
35 | ||
36 | =over 4 | |
37 | ||
38 | =item rt.perl.org | |
39 | ||
40 | C<RT #43010> inline, but enclose in square brackets after a sentence. | |
41 | C<[RT #43010]> | |
42 | ||
43 | =item ActiveState | |
44 | ||
45 | C<http://bugs.activestate.com/show_bug.cgi?id=72443> | |
46 | ||
47 | =item Debian | |
48 | ||
49 | C<Debian bug #379463> | |
50 | ||
51 | =back | |
52 | ||
53 | =head2 Copy editing | |
54 | ||
55 | Be consistent. | |
56 | ||
57 | In a list, either make every item a note, or a full sentence. Either end | |
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58 | every item with a full stop, or ensure that no item ends with one. I<regex> |
59 | B<xor> I<regexp> - choose exactly one, and stick to it. | |
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60 | |
61 | =head2 Sections | |
62 | ||
63 | Historically, the perldelta has consisted of a sequence of C<=head1> | |
64 | sections, usually in the same order. Un-needed sections are deleted, | |
65 | and if something doesn't fit nicely into the existing sections, a new | |
66 | more appropriate section is created. | |
67 | ||
68 | =over | |
69 | ||
70 | =item NAME | |
71 | ||
72 | Follows this formula: | |
73 | ||
74 | perl5104delta - what is new for perl v5.10.4 | |
75 | ||
76 | =item DESCRIPTION | |
77 | ||
78 | For a release on a stable branch, follows this formula: | |
79 | ||
80 | This document describes differences between the 5.10.3 release and | |
81 | the 5.10.4 release. | |
82 | ||
83 | For the start of a new stable branch, follows this formula: | |
84 | ||
85 | This document describes differences between the 5.12.0 release and | |
86 | the 5.10.0 release. | |
87 | ||
68346ec5 | 88 | Clearly this sets the scope of which changes are to be summarised in the rest |
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89 | of the document. |
90 | ||
91 | =item Notice | |
92 | ||
93 | There was a I<Notice> section in L<perl589delta>, to carry an important | |
94 | notice. | |
95 | ||
96 | =item Incompatible Changes | |
97 | ||
98 | For a release on a stable branch, this section aspires to be | |
99 | ||
100 | There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.10.3. If any exist, | |
101 | they are bugs and reports are welcome. | |
102 | ||
103 | =item Core Enhancements | |
104 | ||
105 | New core language features go here. Summarise user-visible core language | |
106 | enhancements. Particularly prominent performance optimisations could go | |
107 | here, but most should go in the L</Performance Enhancements> section. | |
108 | ||
109 | Feature inside modules (pure-Perl and XS) go in L</Modules and Pragmata> | |
110 | ||
111 | =item New Platforms | |
112 | ||
113 | List any platforms that this version of perl compiles on, that previous | |
114 | versions did not. These will either be enabled by new files in the F<hints/> | |
115 | directories, or new subdirectories and F<README> files at the top level of the | |
116 | source tree. | |
117 | ||
118 | =item Modules and Pragmata | |
119 | ||
120 | All changes to installed files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> go here, in a list | |
121 | ordered by distribution name. Minimally it should be the module version, | |
122 | but it's more useful to the end user to give a paragraph's summary of the | |
123 | module's changes. In an ideal world, dual-life modules would have a | |
124 | F<Changes> file that could be cribbed. | |
125 | ||
126 | Whilst this section could be built by incrementally working through change | |
127 | descriptions applying to files, this is prone to error. It's better to | |
128 | collate changes to F<ext/> and F<lib/> by module, and then summarise all | |
129 | changes to a module as a group. This can be done by partitioning directories | |
130 | within F<ext/> and F<lib/> to a number of people. | |
131 | ||
60984f2f | 132 | B<FIXME> - this could be automated better |
0be987a2 | 133 | |
60984f2f | 134 | If Module::CoreList has been updated, then F<Porting/corelist-perldelta.pl> |
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135 | will automatically print out several sections if relevent that can be |
136 | pasted into F<perldelta>: | |
137 | ||
138 | * New Modules and Pragmata | |
139 | * Pragmata Changes | |
140 | * Updated Modules | |
141 | * Removed Modules and Pragmata | |
142 | ||
143 | Each section will have stub entries following a template like this: | |
0be987a2 | 144 | |
60984f2f | 145 | =item C<less> |
0be987a2 | 146 | |
60984f2f | 147 | Upgraded from version 0.01 to 0.02 |
0be987a2 | 148 | |
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149 | It does not include modules listed in F<Porting/Maintainers.pl> under |
150 | C<_PERLLIB>, but it's a start. Where relevent, a summary of changes can be | |
151 | added by hand. | |
0be987a2 | 152 | |
60984f2f | 153 | A more adventurous enhancement would be to automate grabbing |
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154 | the changelogs for dual lived modules. For each of them, grab the relevant |
155 | changes files from CPAN for the old and new versions, and if the old one is | |
156 | a strict subset of the new one, splice the extra lines right into the output, | |
157 | as a basis for summarising. | |
158 | ||
159 | (And if not, experiment with using F<git> to get the relevant part of changelog | |
160 | for the particular file in core) | |
161 | ||
162 | These could also be enhanced further by using a Pod parser module to produce | |
163 | a parse tree of F<perl${whatever}delta.pod>, and splicing in the updates | |
164 | correctly without throwing existing entries away. | |
165 | ||
166 | If you think that's nuts, take a look at what F<pod/buildtoc> already does to | |
167 | splice into existing Makefiles on various platforms: | |
168 | ||
169 | http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob/blead:/pod/buildtoc#l498 | |
170 | ||
171 | Perl is this really powerful language for text manipulation. And fun to | |
172 | play with. We need to get that message out. :-) | |
173 | ||
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174 | =item Utility Changes |
175 | ||
176 | Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go here. Most | |
177 | of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>. | |
178 | ||
179 | =item New Documentation | |
180 | ||
181 | Changes which create B<new> files in F<pod/> go here. | |
182 | ||
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183 | B<FIXME> - this could be automated, at least as far as generating a first |
184 | draft. | |
185 | ||
186 | =over | |
187 | ||
188 | =item 1 | |
189 | ||
190 | Start with a clean exploded tarball of the previous release, and a clean | |
191 | checkout of the branch in question | |
192 | ||
193 | =item 2 | |
194 | ||
195 | Take the F<MANIFEST> file of each | |
196 | ||
197 | =item 3 | |
198 | ||
199 | Search for lines matching C<m!^pod/.*\.pod!> | |
200 | ||
201 | =item 4 | |
202 | ||
203 | Diff them | |
204 | ||
205 | =item 5 | |
206 | ||
207 | Explode if anyone deleted documentation. [No idea what the policy on that is | |
208 | yet] | |
209 | ||
210 | =item 6 | |
211 | ||
212 | For each file only in the newer F<MANIFEST> | |
213 | ||
214 | =over | |
215 | ||
60984f2f | 216 | =item 1 |
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217 | |
218 | Use F<git> to determine its Author | |
219 | ||
220 | =item 2 | |
221 | ||
222 | Open the pod file itself | |
223 | ||
224 | =item 3 | |
225 | ||
226 | Grab the description section | |
227 | ||
228 | =item 4 | |
229 | ||
230 | Write out a block of text starting roughly | |
231 | ||
232 | L<perlfoo>, by A. U. Thor, provides @description | |
233 | ||
234 | =back | |
235 | ||
236 | =back | |
237 | ||
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238 | =item Changes to Existing Documentation |
239 | ||
240 | Changes which significantly change existing files in F<pod/> go here. | |
241 | Any changes to F<pod/perldiag.pod> should go in | |
242 | L</New or Changed Diagnostics>. | |
243 | ||
244 | =item Performance Enhancements | |
245 | ||
246 | Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There | |
247 | may well be none in a stable release. | |
248 | ||
249 | =item Installation and Configuration Improvements | |
250 | ||
251 | Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools | |
252 | go here. | |
253 | ||
254 | =item Selected Bug Fixes | |
255 | ||
256 | Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here. | |
257 | Bug fixes in files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarised in | |
258 | L</Modules and Pragmata>. | |
259 | ||
260 | =item New or Changed Diagnostics | |
261 | ||
262 | New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here. | |
263 | ||
264 | =item Changed Internals | |
265 | ||
266 | Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here. | |
267 | ||
268 | =item New Tests | |
269 | ||
270 | Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here. Changes to existing files | |
271 | in F<t/> aren't worth summarising, although the bugs that they represent | |
272 | may be. | |
273 | ||
f95a4791 | 274 | Autogenerate this section by running something like this: |
0be987a2 | 275 | |
f95a4791 | 276 | # perl newtests-perldelta.pl v5.11.1 HEAD |
0be987a2 | 277 | |
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278 | =item Known Problems |
279 | ||
280 | Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any | |
281 | tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here, unless | |
282 | they were specific to a particular platform (see below). | |
283 | ||
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284 | =item Deprecations |
285 | ||
286 | Add any new known deprecations here. | |
287 | ||
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288 | =item Platform Specific Notes |
289 | ||
290 | Any changes specific to a particular platform. VMS and Win32 are the usual | |
291 | stars here. It's probably best to group changes under the same section layout | |
292 | as the main perldelta. | |
293 | ||
294 | =item Obituary | |
295 | ||
296 | If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary | |
297 | here. | |
298 | ||
299 | =item Acknowledgements | |
300 | ||
301 | The list of people to thank goes here. | |
302 | ||
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303 | You can find the list of committers and authors by: |
304 | ||
06d5de52 | 305 | % git log v5.11.1..HEAD | perl -nlwe '$seen{$1}++ if /^Author: ([^<]*)/; END { print for sort keys %seen }' |
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306 | |
307 | And how many files where changed by: | |
308 | ||
309 | % git diff v5.11.1..HEAD | diffstat | |
310 | ||
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311 | =item Reporting Bugs |
312 | ||
313 | This doesn't usually need to be changed from the previous perldelta. | |
314 | ||
315 | =item SEE ALSO | |
316 | ||
317 | This doesn't usually need to be changed from the previous perldelta. | |
318 | ||
319 | =back |