5 release_managers_guide - Releasing a new version of perl 5.x
7 Note that things change at each release, so there may be new things not
8 covered here, or tools may need updating.
13 This document describes the series of tasks required - some automatic, some
14 manual - to produce a perl release of some description, be that a release
15 candidate, or final, numbered release of maint or blead.
17 The release process has traditionally been executed by the current
18 pumpking. Blead releases from 5.11.0 forward are made each month on the
19 20th by a non-pumpking release engineer. The release engineer roster
20 and schedule can be found in Porting/release_schedule.pod.
22 This document both helps as a check-list for the release engineer
23 and is a base for ideas on how the various tasks could be automated
26 The outline of a typical release cycle is as follows:
28 (5.10.1 is released, and post-release actions have been done)
32 a few weeks before the release, a number of steps are performed,
33 including bumping the version to 5.10.2
35 ...a few weeks passes...
37 perl-5.10.2-RC1 is released
39 perl-5.10.2 is released
41 post-release actions are performed, including creating new
44 ... the cycle continues ...
49 Some of the tasks described below apply to all four types of
50 release of Perl. (blead, RC, final release of maint, final
51 release of blead). Some of these tasks apply only to a subset
52 of these release types. If a step does not apply to a given
53 type of release, you will see a notation to that effect at
54 the beginning of the step.
61 =item Release Candidate (RC)
63 A release candidate is an attempt to produce a tarball that is a close as
64 possible to the final release. Indeed, unless critical faults are found
65 during the RC testing, the final release will be identical to the RC
66 barring a few minor fixups (updating the release date in F<perlhist.pod>,
67 removing the RC status from F<patchlevel.h>, etc). If faults are found,
68 then the fixes should be put into a new release candidate, never directly
72 =item Stable/Maint release (MAINT).
74 A release with an even version number, and subversion number > 0, such as
77 At this point you should have a working release candidate with few or no
80 It's essentially the same procedure as for making a release candidate, but
81 with a whole bunch of extra post-release steps.
83 =item A blead point release (BLEAD-POINT)
85 A release with an odd version number, such as 5.15.0 or 5.15.1.
87 This isn't for production, so it has less stability requirements than for
88 other release types, and isn't preceded by RC releases. Other than that,
89 it is similar to a MAINT release.
91 =item Blead final release (BLEAD-FINAL)
93 A release with an even version number, and subversion number == 0, such as
94 5.14.0. That is to say, it's the big new release once per year.
96 It's essentially the same procedure as for making a release candidate, but
97 with a whole bunch of extra post-release steps, even more than for MAINT.
104 Before you can make an official release of perl, there are a few
105 hoops you need to jump through:
111 Make sure you have a PAUSE account suitable for uploading a perl release.
112 If you don't have a PAUSE account, then request one:
114 https://pause.perl.org/pause/query?ACTION=request_id
116 Check that your account is allowed to upload perl distros: go to
117 L<https://pause.perl.org/pause/authenquery?ACTION=who_pumpkin> and check that
118 your PAUSE ID is listed there. If not, ask Andreas KE<0xf6>nig to add your ID
119 to the list of people allowed to upload something called perl. You can find
120 Andreas' email address at:
122 https://pause.perl.org/pause/query?ACTION=pause_04imprint
124 =item search.cpan.org
126 Make sure that search.cpan.org knows that you're allowed to upload
127 perl distros. Contact Graham Barr to make sure that you're on the right
132 Some release engineering steps require a full mirror of the CPAN.
133 Work to fall back to using a remote mirror via HTTP is incomplete
134 but ongoing. (No, a minicpan mirror is not sufficient)
136 =item git checkout and commit bit
138 You will need a working C<git> installation, checkout of the perl
139 git repository and perl commit bit. For information about working
140 with perl and git, see F<pod/perlgit.pod>.
142 If you are not yet a perl committer, you won't be able to make a
143 release. Have a chat with whichever evil perl porter tried to talk
144 you into the idea in the first place to figure out the best way to
148 =item Quotation for release announcement epigraph
150 I<SKIP this step for RC>
152 For all except an RC release of perl, you will need a quotation
153 to use as an epigraph to your release announcement.
159 =head2 Building a release - advance actions
161 The work of building a release candidate for a numbered release of
162 perl generally starts several weeks before the first release candidate.
163 Some of the following steps should be done regularly, but all I<must> be
164 done in the run up to a release.
167 =head3 dual-life CPAN module synchronisation
169 Ensure that dual-life CPAN modules are synchronised with CPAN. Basically,
172 $ ./perl -Ilib Porting/core-cpan-diff -a -o /tmp/corediffs
174 to see any inconsistencies between the core and CPAN versions of distros,
175 then fix the core, or cajole CPAN authors as appropriate. See also the
176 C<-d> and C<-v> options for more detail. You'll probably want to use the
177 C<-c cachedir> option to avoid repeated CPAN downloads and may want to
178 use C<-m file:///mirror/path> if you made a local CPAN mirror.
180 To see which core distro versions differ from the current CPAN versions:
182 $ ./perl -Ilib Porting/core-cpan-diff -x -a
184 If you are making a MAINT release, run C<core-cpan-diff> on both blead and
185 maint, then diff the two outputs. Compare this with what you expect, and if
186 necessary, fix things up. For example, you might think that both blead
187 and maint are synchronised with a particular CPAN module, but one might
188 have some extra changes.
191 =head3 dual-life CPAN module stability
193 Ensure dual-life CPAN modules are stable, which comes down to:
195 for each module that fails its regression tests on $current
196 did it fail identically on $previous?
197 if yes, "SEP" (Somebody Else's Problem)
198 else work out why it failed (a bisect is useful for this)
200 attempt to group failure causes
202 for each failure cause
203 is that a regression?
204 if yes, figure out how to fix it
205 (more code? revert the code that broke it)
207 (presumably) it's relying on something un-or-under-documented
208 should the existing behaviour stay?
209 yes - goto "regression"
210 no - note it in perldelta as a significant bugfix
211 (also, try to inform the module's author)
216 Similarly, monitor the smoking of core tests, and try to fix. See
217 L<http://doc.procura.nl/smoke/index.html> for a summary. See also
218 L<http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.daily-build.reports/> which has
221 Similarly, monitor the smoking of perl for compiler warnings, and try to
227 Get perldelta in a mostly finished state.
229 Read F<Porting/how_to_write_a_perldelta.pod>, and try to make sure that
230 every section it lists is, if necessary, populated and complete. Copy
231 edit the whole document.
234 =head3 Bump the version number
236 Increase the version number (e.g. from 5.12.0 to 5.12.1).
238 For a BLEAD-POINT release, this can happen on the day of the release. For a
239 release candidate for a stable perl, this should happen a week or two
240 before the first release candidate to allow sufficient time for testing and
241 smoking with the target version built into the perl executable. For
242 subsequent release candidates and the final release, it it not necessary to
243 bump the version further.
245 There is a tool to semi-automate this process:
247 $ ./perl -Ilib Porting/bump-perl-version -i 5.10.0 5.10.1
249 Remember that this tool is largely just grepping for '5.10.0' or whatever,
250 so it will generate false positives. Be careful not change text like
251 "this was fixed in 5.10.0"!
253 Use git status and git diff to select changes you want to keep.
255 Be particularly careful with F<INSTALL>, which contains a mixture of
256 C<5.10.0>-type strings, some of which need bumping on every release, and
257 some of which need to be left unchanged.
258 The line in F<INSTALL> about "is binary incompatible with" requires a
259 correct choice of earlier version to declare incompatibility with.
261 When doing a BLEAD-POINT or BLEAD-FINAL release, also make sure the
262 C<PERL_API_*> constants in F<patchlevel.h> are in sync with the version
263 you're releasing, unless you're
264 absolutely sure the release you're about to make is 100% binary compatible
265 to an earlier release. When releasing a MAINT perl version, the C<PERL_API_*>
266 constants C<MUST NOT> be changed as we aim to guarantee binary compatibility
269 After editing, regenerate uconfig.h (this must be run on a system with a
272 $ perl regen/uconfig_h.pl
276 $ git clean -xdf # careful if you don't have local files to keep!
277 $ ./Configure -des -Dusedevel
285 B<review the delta carefully>
287 $ git commit -a -m 'Bump the perl version in various places for 5.x.y'
289 At this point you may want to compare the commit with a previous bump to
290 see if they look similar. See commit 8891dd8d for an example of a
291 previous version bump.
293 When the version number is bumped, you should also update Module::CoreList
294 (as described below in L<"update Module::CoreList">) to reflect the new
298 =head3 update INSTALL
300 Review and update INSTALL to account for the change in version number;
301 in particular, the "Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5" section.
303 Be particularly careful with the section "Upgrading from 5.X.Y or earlier".
304 The "X.Y" needs to be changed to the most recent version that we are
305 I<not> binary compatible with.
307 For MAINT and BLEAD-FINAL releases, this needs to refer to the last
308 release in the previous development cycle (so for example, for a 5.14.x
309 release, this would be 5.13.11).
311 For BLEAD-POINT releases, it needs to refer to the previous BLEAD-POINT
312 release (so for 5.15.3 this would be 5.15.2).
314 =head3 Check more build configurations
316 Check some more build configurations. The check that setuid builds and
317 installs is for < 5.11.0 only.
319 $ sh Configure -Dprefix=/tmp/perl-5.x.y -Uinstallusrbinperl \
320 -Duseshrplib -Dd_dosuid
322 $ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd` make test # or similar for useshrplib
325 $ su -c 'make install'
326 $ ls -l .../bin/sperl
327 -rws--x--x 1 root root 69974 2009-08-22 21:55 .../bin/sperl
329 (Then delete the installation directory.)
331 XXX think of other configurations that need testing.
334 =head3 update perlport
336 L<perlport> has a section currently named I<Supported Platforms> that
337 indicates which platforms are known to build in the current release.
338 If necessary update the list and the indicated version number.
342 =head2 Building a release - on the day
344 This section describes the actions required to make a release
345 that are performed on the actual day.
348 =head3 re-check earlier actions
350 Review all the actions in the previous section,
351 L<"Building a release - advance actions"> to ensure they are all done and
355 =head3 bump version number
357 For a BLEAD-POINT release, if you did not bump the perl version number as
358 part of I<advance actions>, do that now.
361 =head3 finalize perldelta
363 Finalize the perldelta. In particular, fill in the Acknowledgements
364 section, which can be generated with something like:
366 $ perl Porting/acknowledgements.pl v5.15.0..HEAD
368 Re-read the perldelta to try to find any embarrassing typos and thinkos;
369 remove any C<TODO> or C<XXX> flags; update the "Known Problems" section
370 with any serious issues for which fixes are not going to happen now; and
371 run through pod and spell checkers, e.g.
373 $ podchecker -warnings -warnings pod/perldelta.pod
374 $ spell pod/perldelta.pod
376 Also, you may want to generate and view an HTML version of it to check
379 $ ./perl -Ilib ext/Pod-Html/bin/pod2html pod/perldelta.pod > /tmp/perldelta.html
381 Another good HTML preview option is http://search.cpan.org/pod2html
383 If you make changes, be sure to commit them.
385 =head3 remove stale perldeltas
387 For the first RC release that is ONLY for a BLEAD-FINAL, the perldeltas
388 from the BLEAD-POINT releases since the previous BLEAD_FINAL should have
389 now been consolidated into the current perldelta, and hence are now just
390 useless clutter. They can be removed using:
392 $ git rm <file1> <file2> ...
394 For example, for RC0 of 5.16.0:
397 $ git rm perldelta515*.pod
399 All mention to them should also be removed. Currently the files that
400 need to be edited for this task are F<MANIFEST>, F<pod.list>,
401 F<pod/perl.pod>, and F<win32/pod.mak> (including C<.man>, C<.html>, and
402 C<.tex> entries for each removed pod).
404 Then build a clean perl and do a full test
408 $ ./Configure -Dusedevel -des
412 Once all tests pass, commit your changes.
414 =head3 build a clean perl
416 If you skipped the previous step (removing the stale perldeltas)
417 make sure you have a gitwise-clean perl directory (no modified files,
418 unpushed commits etc):
423 then configure and build perl so that you have a Makefile and porting tools:
425 $ ./Configure -Dusedevel -des && make
427 =head3 update Module::CoreList
429 Update C<Module::CoreList> with module version data for the new release.
431 Note that if this is a MAINT release, you should run the following actions
432 from the maint branch, but commit the C<CoreList.pm> changes in
433 I<blead> and subsequently cherry-pick any releases since the last
434 maint release and then your recent commit. XXX need a better example
436 F<corelist.pl> uses ftp.funet.fi to verify information about dual-lived
437 modules on CPAN. It can use a full, local CPAN mirror or fall back
438 to C<wget> or C<curl> to fetch only package metadata remotely. (If you're
439 on Win32, then installing Cygwin is one way to have commands like C<wget>
440 and C<curl> available.)
442 (If you'd prefer to have a full CPAN mirror, see
443 http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html#How_mirror_CPAN)
445 Then change to your perl checkout, and if necessary,
449 If this is not the first update for this version (e.g. if it was updated
450 when the version number was originally bumped), first edit
451 F<dist/Module-CoreList/lib/Module/CoreList.pm> to delete the existing
452 entries for this version from the C<%released> and C<%version> hashes:
453 they will have a key like C<5.010001> for 5.10.1.
455 XXX the edit-in-place functionality of Porting/corelist.pl should
456 be fixed to handle this automatically.
458 Then, If you have a local CPAN mirror, run:
460 $ ./perl -Ilib Porting/corelist.pl ~/my-cpan-mirror
464 $ ./perl -Ilib Porting/corelist.pl cpan
466 This will chug for a while, possibly reporting various warnings about
467 badly-indexed CPAN modules unrelated to the modules actually in core.
468 Assuming all goes well, it will update
469 F<dist/Module-CoreList/lib/Module/CoreList.pm>.
471 Check that file over carefully:
473 $ git diff dist/Module-CoreList/lib/Module/CoreList.pm
475 If necessary, bump C<$VERSION> (there's no need to do this for
476 every RC; in RC1, bump the version to a new clean number that will
477 appear in the final release, and leave as-is for the later RCs and final).
478 It may also happen that C<Module::CoreList> has been modified in blead, and
479 hence has a new version number already. (But make sure it is not the same
480 number as a CPAN release.)
482 Edit the version number in the new C<< 'Module::CoreList' => 'X.YZ' >>
483 entry, as that is likely to reflect the previous version number.
485 Also edit Module::CoreList's new version number in its F<Changes>
488 Add a perldelta entry for the new Module::CoreList version.
490 In addition, if this is a final release (rather than a release candidate):
496 Update this version's entry in the C<%released> hash with today's date.
500 Make sure that the script has correctly updated the C<CAVEATS> section
504 Finally, commit the new version of Module::CoreList:
505 (unless this is for MAINT; in which case commit it to blead first, then
506 cherry-pick it back).
508 $ git commit -m 'Update Module::CoreList for 5.x.y' dist/Module-CoreList/lib/Module/CoreList.pm
511 =head3 update perlhist.pod
513 I<You MUST SKIP this step for a RC release>
515 Add an entry to F<pod/perlhist.pod> with the release date, e.g.:
517 David 5.10.1 2009-Aug-06
519 Make sure that the correct pumpking is listed in the left-hand column, and
520 if this is the first release under the stewardship of a new pumpking, make
521 sure that his or her name is listed in the section entitled
522 C<THE KEEPERS OF THE PUMPKIN>.
524 Be sure to commit your changes:
526 $ git commit -m 'add new release to perlhist' pod/perlhist.pod
529 =head3 update patchlevel.h
531 I<You MUST SKIP this step for a BLEAD-POINT release>
533 Update F<patchlevel.h> to add a C<-RC1>-or-whatever string; or, if this is
534 a final release, remove it. For example:
536 static const char * const local_patches[] = {
539 PERL_GIT_UNPUSHED_COMMITS /* do not remove this line */
541 Be sure to commit your change:
543 $ git commit -m 'bump version to RCnnn' patchlevel.h
546 =head3 build, test and check a fresh perl
548 Build perl, then make sure it passes its own test suite, and installs:
551 $ ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/tmp/perl-5.x.y-pretest
553 # or if it's an odd-numbered version:
554 $ ./Configure -des -Dusedevel -Dprefix=/tmp/perl-5.x.y-pretest
558 Check that the output of C</tmp/perl-5.x.y-pretest/bin/perl -v> and
559 C</tmp/perl-5.x.y-pretest/bin/perl -V> are as expected,
560 especially as regards version numbers, patch and/or RC levels, and @INC
561 paths. Note that as they have been been built from a git working
562 directory, they will still identify themselves using git tags and
565 Then delete the temporary installation.
568 =head3 push the work so far
570 Push all your recent commits:
572 $ git push origin ....
575 =head3 tag the release
577 Tag the release (e.g.):
579 $ git tag v5.11.0 -m "First release of the v5.11 series!"
581 It is B<VERY> important that from this point forward, you not push
582 your git changes to the Perl master repository. If anything goes
583 wrong before you publish your newly-created tag, you can delete
584 and recreate it. Once you push your tag, we're stuck with it
585 and you'll need to use a new version number for your release.
588 =head3 build the tarball
590 Before you run the following, you might want to install 7-Zip (the
591 C<p7zip-full> package under Debian or the C<p7zip> port on MacPorts) or
592 the AdvanceCOMP suite (e.g. the C<advancecomp> package under Debian,
593 or the C<advancecomp> port on macports - 7-Zip on Windows is the
594 same code as AdvanceCOMP, so Windows users get the smallest files
595 first time). These compress about 5% smaller than gzip and bzip2.
596 Over the lifetime of your distribution this will save a lot of
597 people a small amount of download time and disk space, which adds
600 Create a tarball. Use the C<-s> option to specify a suitable suffix for
601 the tarball and directory name:
603 $ cd root/of/perl/tree
605 $ git clean -xdf # make sure perl and git agree on files
606 $ git status # and there's nothing lying around
608 $ perl Porting/makerel -b -s RC1 # for a release candidate
609 $ perl Porting/makerel -b # for a final release
611 This creates the directory F<../perl-x.y.z-RC1> or similar, copies all
612 the MANIFEST files into it, sets the correct permissions on them,
613 adds DOS line endings to some, then tars it up as
614 F<../perl-x.y.z-RC1.tar.gz>. With C<-b>, it also creates a C<tar.bz2> file.
616 If you're getting your tarball suffixed with -uncommitted and you're sure
617 your changes were all committed, you can override the suffix with:
619 $ perl Porting/makerel -b -s ''
621 XXX if we go for extra tags and branches stuff, then add the extra details
624 Finally, clean up the temporary directory, e.g.
626 $ rm -rf ../perl-x.y.z-RC1
629 =head3 test the tarball
635 Copy the tarballs (.gz and possibly .bz2) to a web server somewhere you
640 Download the tarball to some other machine. For a release candidate,
641 you really want to test your tarball on two or more different platforms
642 and architectures. The #p5p IRC channel on irc.perl.org is a good place
643 to find willing victims.
647 Check that basic configuration and tests work on each test machine:
649 $ ./Configure -des && make all test
653 Check that the test harness and install work on each test machine:
656 $ ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/install/path && make all test_harness install
661 Check that the output of C<perl -v> and C<perl -V> are as expected,
662 especially as regards version numbers, patch and/or RC levels, and @INC
665 Note that the results may be different without a F<.git/> directory,
666 which is why you should test from the tarball.
670 Run the Installation Verification Procedure utility:
672 $ ./perl utils/perlivp
674 All tests successful.
679 Compare the pathnames of all installed files with those of the previous
680 release (i.e. against the last installed tarball on this branch which you
681 have previously verified using this same procedure). In particular, look
682 for files in the wrong place, or files no longer included which should be.
683 For example, suppose the about-to-be-released version is 5.10.1 and the
686 cd installdir-5.10.0/
687 find . -type f | perl -pe's/5\.10\.0/5.10.1/g' | sort > /tmp/f1
688 cd installdir-5.10.1/
689 find . -type f | sort > /tmp/f2
694 Bootstrap the CPAN client on the clean install:
696 $ bin/perl -MCPAN -e "shell"
698 If you're running this on Win32 you probably also need a set of Unix
699 command-line tools available for CPAN to function correctly without
700 Perl alternatives like LWP installed. Cygwin is an obvious choice.)
704 Try installing a popular CPAN module that's reasonably complex and that
705 has dependencies; for example:
710 Check that your perl can run this:
712 $ bin/perl -lwe "use Inline C => q[int f() { return 42;}]; print f"
718 Bootstrap the CPANPLUS client on the clean install:
722 (Again, on Win32 you'll need something like Cygwin installed, but make sure
723 that you don't end up with its various F<bin/cpan*> programs being found on
724 the PATH before those of the Perl that you're trying to test.)
728 Install an XS module, for example:
732 $ bin/perl -MDBI -e 1
737 Check that the L<perlbug> utility works. Try the following:
741 Subject: test bug report
742 Local perl administrator [yourself]:
748 Action (Send/Display/Edit/Subject/Save to File): f
749 Name of file to save message in [perlbug.rep]:
750 Action (Send/Display/Edit/Subject/Save to File): q
752 and carefully examine the output (in F<perlbug.rep]>), especially
753 the "Locally applied patches" section. If everything appears okay, then
754 delete the file, and try it again, this time actually submitting the bug
755 report. Check that it shows up, then remember to close it!
760 =head3 monitor smokes
762 Wait for the smoke tests to catch up with the commit which this release is
763 based on (or at least the last commit of any consequence).
765 Then check that the smoke tests pass (particularly on Win32). If not, go
768 Note that for I<BLEAD-POINT> releases this may not be practical. It takes a
769 long time for the smokers to catch up, especially the Win32
770 smokers. This is why we have a RC cycle for I<MAINT> and I<BLEAD-FINAL>
771 releases, but for I<BLEAD-POINT> releases sometimes the best you can do is
772 to plead with people on IRC to test stuff on their platforms, fire away,
773 and then hope for the best.
776 =head3 upload to PAUSE
778 Once smoking is okay, upload it to PAUSE. This is the point of no return.
779 If anything goes wrong after this point, you will need to re-prepare
780 a new release with a new minor version or RC number.
782 https://pause.perl.org/
784 (Login, then select 'Upload a file to CPAN')
786 If your workstation is not connected to a high-bandwidth,
787 high-reliability connection to the Internet, you should probably use the
788 "GET URL" feature (rather than "HTTP UPLOAD") to have PAUSE retrieve the
789 new release from wherever you put it for testers to find it. This will
790 eliminate anxious gnashing of teeth while you wait to see if your
791 15 megabyte HTTP upload successfully completes across your slow, twitchy
792 cable modem. You can make use of your home directory on dromedary for
793 this purpose: F<http://users.perl5.git.perl.org/~USERNAME> maps to
794 F</home/USERNAME/public_html>, where F<USERNAME> is your login account
795 on dromedary. I<Remember>: if your upload is partially successful, you
796 may need to contact a PAUSE administrator or even bump the version of perl.
798 Upload both the .gz and .bz2 versions of the tarball.
800 Do not proceed any further until you are sure that your tarballs are on
801 CPAN. Check your authors directory on one of the "fast" CPAN mirrors
802 (e.g., cpan.hexten.net
803 or cpan.cpantesters.org) to confirm that your uploads have been successful.
805 I<You MUST SKIP this step for RC>
807 Wait until you receive notification emails from the PAUSE indexer
808 confirming that your uploads have been received. IMPORTANT -- you will
809 probably get an email that indexing has failed, due to module permissions.
810 This is considered normal.
815 Now that you've shipped the new perl release to PAUSE, it's
816 time to publish the tag you created earlier to the public git repo (e.g.):
818 $ git push origin tag v5.11.0
821 =head3 disarm patchlevel.h
823 I<You MUST SKIP this step for BLEAD-POINT release>
825 Disarm the F<patchlevel.h> change; for example,
827 static const char * const local_patches[] = {
830 PERL_GIT_UNPUSHED_COMMITS /* do not remove this line */
832 Be sure to commit your change:
834 $ git commit -m 'disarm RCnnn bump' patchlevel.h
835 $ git push origin ....
839 =head3 announce to p5p
841 Mail p5p to announce your new release, with a quote you prepared earlier.
843 Use the template at Porting/release_announcement_template.txt
845 =head3 update epigraphs.pod
847 Add your quote to F<Porting/epigraphs.pod> and commit it.
848 Your release announcement will probably not have reached the web-visible
849 archives yet, so you won't be able to include the customary link to the
850 release announcement yet.
852 =head3 Module::CoreList nagging
854 I<You MUST SKIP this step for RC>
856 Remind the current maintainer of C<Module::CoreList> to push a new release
862 I<You MUST SKIP this step for RC>
864 Create a new perldelta.
866 B<Note>: currently, the buildtoc below must be run in a I<built> perl source
867 directory, as at least one of the pod files it expects to find is
868 autogenerated: perluniprops.pod. But you can't build perl if you've added
869 the new perldelta file and not updated toc. So, make sure you have a built
870 perl (with a pod/perluniprops.pod file) now, I<before> continuing.
872 First, update the F<pod/.gitignore> file to ignore the next
873 release's generated F<pod/perlNNNdelta.pod> file rather than this release's
874 one which we are about to set in stone (where NNN is the perl version number
875 without the dots. i.e. 5135 for 5.13.5).
877 $ (edit pod/.gitignore )
878 $ git add pod/.gitignore
880 Then, move the existing F<pod/perldelta.pod> to F<pod/perlNNNdelta.pod>,
881 and edit the moved delta file to change the C<NAME> from C<perldelta> to
882 C<perlNNNdelta>. For example, assuming you just released 5.10.1, and are
883 about to create the 5.10.2 perldelta:
885 $ rm pod/perl5101delta.pod # remove the auto-generated file, if any
886 $ git mv pod/perldelta.pod pod/perl5101delta.pod
887 $ (edit pod/perl5101delta.pod to retitle)
888 $ git add pod/perl5101delta.pod
890 Then create a new empty perldelta.pod file for the new release; see
891 F<Porting/how_to_write_a_perldelta.pod>. You should be able to do this by
892 just copying in a skeleton template and then doing a quick fix up of the
893 version numbers. Then commit the move and the new file.
895 $ cp -i Porting/perldelta_template.pod pod/perldelta.pod
896 $ (edit pod/perldelta.pod)
897 $ git add pod/perldelta.pod
898 $ git commit -m 'create perldelta for 5.10.2'
900 =head3 update perldelta TOC and references
902 Now you need to update various tables of contents related to perldelta,
903 most of which can be generated automatically.
905 Edit F<pod.lst>: add the new entry for the perlNNNdelta file for the
906 current version (the file that will be symlinked to perldelta).
908 Manually create a temporary link to the new delta file; normally this is
909 done from the Makefile, but the Makefile is updated by buildtoc, and
910 buildtoc won't run without the file there:
912 $ ln -s pod/perldelta.pod pod/perl5102delta.pod
914 Run C<perl pod/buildtoc --build-all> to update the F<perldelta> version in
920 vms/descrip_mms.template
927 $ git commit -a -m 'update TOC for perlNNNdelta'
929 At this point you may want to compare the commit with a previous bump to
930 see if they look similar. See commit dd885b5 for an example of a
931 previous version bump.
936 I<You MUST SKIP this step for RC, BLEAD-POINT, MAINT>
938 If this was a BLEAD-FINAL release (i.e. the first release of a new maint
939 series, 5.x.0 where x is even), then bump the version in the blead branch
940 in git, e.g. 5.12.0 to 5.13.0.
942 First, add a new feature bundle to F<lib/feature.pm>, initially by just
943 copying the exiting entry, and bump the file's $VERSION; e.g.
945 "5.14" => [qw(switch say state unicode_strings)],
946 + "5.15" => [qw(switch say state unicode_strings)],
948 Then follow the section L<"Bump the version number"> to bump the version
949 in the remaining files and test and commit.
952 =head3 clean build and test
954 Run a clean build and test to make sure nothing obvious is broken.
956 In particular, F<Porting/perldelta_template.pod> is intentionally exempted
957 from podchecker tests, to avoid false positives about placeholder text.
958 However, once it's copied to F<pod/perldelta.pod> the contents can now
959 cause test failures. Problems should resolved by doing one of the
966 Replace placeholder text with correct text.
970 If the problem is from a broken placeholder link, you can add it to the
971 array C<@perldelta_ignore_links> in F<t/porting/podcheck.t>. Lines
972 containing such links should be marked with C<XXX> so that they get
973 cleaned up before the next release.
977 Following the instructions output by F<t/porting/podcheck.t> on how to
978 update its exceptions database.
984 Finally, push any commits done above.
986 $ git push origin ....
989 =head3 create maint branch
991 I<You MUST SKIP this step for RC, BLEAD-POINT, MAINT>
993 If this was a BLEAD-FINAL release (i.e. the first release of a new maint
994 series, 5.x.0 where x is even), then create a new maint branch based on
995 the commit tagged as the current release.
997 Assuming you're using git 1.7.x or newer:
999 $ git checkout -b maint-5.12 v5.12.0
1000 $ git push origin -u maint-5.12
1003 =head3 make the maint branch available in the APC
1005 Clone the new branch into /srv/gitcommon/branches on camel so the APC will
1006 receive its changes.
1008 $ git clone --branch maint-5.14 /gitroot/perl.git \
1009 ? /srv/gitcommon/branches/perl-5.14.x
1010 $ chmod -R g=u /srv/gitcommon/branches/perl-5.14.x
1012 And nag the sysadmins to make this directory available via rsync.
1015 =head3 copy perldelta.pod to other branches
1017 I<You MUST SKIP this step for RC, BLEAD-POINT>
1019 Copy the perldelta.pod for this release into the other branches; for
1022 $ cp -i ../5.10.x/pod/perldelta.pod pod/perl5101delta.pod # for example
1023 $ git add pod/perl5101delta.pod
1025 Edit F<pod.lst> to add an entry for the file, e.g.:
1027 perl5101delta Perl changes in version 5.10.1
1029 Then rebuild various files:
1031 $ perl pod/buildtoc --build-all
1035 $ git commit -a -m 'add perlXXXdelta'
1038 =head3 update perlhist.pod in other branches
1040 Make sure any recent F<pod/perlhist.pod> entries are copied to
1041 F<perlhist.pod> on other branches
1047 =head3 bump RT version number
1049 Log into http://rt.perl.org/ and check whether the new version is
1050 in the RT fields C<Perl Version> and C<Fixed In>. If not, send an
1051 email to C<perlbug-admin at perl.org> requesting this.
1055 I<You MUST RETIRE to your preferred PUB, CAFE or SEASIDE VILLA for some
1056 much-needed rest and relaxation>.
1058 Thanks for releasing perl!
1061 =head2 Building a release - the day after
1063 =head3 link announcement in epigraphs.pod
1065 Add, to your quote to F<Porting/epigraphs.pod>, a link to the release
1066 announcement in the web-visible mailing list archive. Commit it.
1068 =head3 check tarball availability
1070 Check various website entries to make sure the that tarball has appeared
1071 and is properly indexed:
1077 Check your author directory under L<http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/>
1078 to ensure that the tarballs are available on the website.
1082 Check C</src> on CPAN (on a fast mirror) to ensure that links to
1083 the new tarballs have appeared. There should be links in C</src/5.0>
1084 (which is accumulating all new versions), links in C</src> (which shows
1085 only the latest version on each branch), and an appropriate mention in
1086 C</src/README.html> (which describes the latest versions).
1088 These links should appear automatically, some hours after upload.
1089 If they don't, or the C<README.html> description is inadequate,
1090 ask Ask <ask@perl.org>.
1094 Check L<http://www.cpan.org/src/> to ensure that the C</src> updates
1095 have been correctly mirrored to the website.
1096 If they haven't, ask Ask <ask@perl.org>.
1100 Check L<http://search.cpan.org> to see if it has indexed the distribution.
1101 It should be visible at a URL like C<http://search.cpan.org/dist/perl-5.10.1/>.
1106 =head3 update dev.perl.org
1108 I<This step ONLY for BLEAD-FINAL and MAINT>
1110 Ask Leo Lapworth to update L<http://dev.perl.org/perl5/>.
1116 http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2009-05/msg00608.html,
1117 plus a whole bunch of other sources, including private correspondence.