1 =head1 How to write a perldelta
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
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.
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>:
22 =item * C<FE<lt>E<gt>> is for File
24 =item * C<CE<lt>E<gt>> is for Code
26 =item * C<LE<lt>E<gt>> is for Link
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
34 Be consistent in how bugs are referenced. One style is
40 C<RT #43010> inline, but enclose in square brackets after a sentence.
45 C<http://bugs.activestate.com/show_bug.cgi?id=72443>
57 In a list, either make every item a note, or a full sentence. Either end
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.
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.
74 perl5104delta - what is new for perl v5.10.4
78 For a release on a stable branch, follows this formula:
80 This document describes differences between the 5.10.3 release and
83 For the start of a new stable branch, follows this formula:
85 This document describes differences between the 5.12.0 release and
88 Clearly this sets the scope of which changes are to be summarised in the rest
93 There was a I<Notice> section in L<perl589delta>, to carry an important
96 =item Incompatible Changes
98 For a release on a stable branch, this section aspires to be
100 There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.10.3. If any exist,
101 they are bugs and reports are welcome.
103 =item Core Enhancements
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.
109 Feature inside modules (pure-Perl and XS) go in L</Modules and Pragmata>
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
118 =item Modules and Pragmata
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.
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.
132 B<FIXME> - this could be automated, although the two below would be easier
135 Start with F<Porting/cmpVERSION.pl>
137 Augment it with a flag, so that instead of reporting which modules are
138 different but have the same version, report on modules which I<are> different.
139 Grab the old version from the exploded tarball, and the new version from
140 the git checkout, and output the line
144 C<less> upgraded from version 0.01 to 0.02
148 Once that's done, a more adventurous enhancement is to automate grabbing
149 the changelogs for dual lived modules. For each of them, grab the relevant
150 changes files from CPAN for the old and new versions, and if the old one is
151 a strict subset of the new one, splice the extra lines right into the output,
152 as a basis for summarising.
154 (And if not, experiment with using F<git> to get the relevant part of changelog
155 for the particular file in core)
157 These could also be enhanced further by using a Pod parser module to produce
158 a parse tree of F<perl${whatever}delta.pod>, and splicing in the updates
159 correctly without throwing existing entries away.
161 If you think that's nuts, take a look at what F<pod/buildtoc> already does to
162 splice into existing Makefiles on various platforms:
164 http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob/blead:/pod/buildtoc#l498
166 Perl is this really powerful language for text manipulation. And fun to
167 play with. We need to get that message out. :-)
169 =item Utility Changes
171 Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go here. Most
172 of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>.
174 =item New Documentation
176 Changes which create B<new> files in F<pod/> go here.
178 B<FIXME> - this could be automated, at least as far as generating a first
185 Start with a clean exploded tarball of the previous release, and a clean
186 checkout of the branch in question
190 Take the F<MANIFEST> file of each
194 Search for lines matching C<m!^pod/.*\.pod!>
202 Explode if anyone deleted documentation. [No idea what the policy on that is
207 For each file only in the newer F<MANIFEST>
213 Use F<git> to determine its Author
217 Open the pod file itself
221 Grab the description section
225 Write out a block of text starting roughly
227 L<perlfoo>, by A. U. Thor, provides @description
233 =item Changes to Existing Documentation
235 Changes which significantly change existing files in F<pod/> go here.
236 Any changes to F<pod/perldiag.pod> should go in
237 L</New or Changed Diagnostics>.
239 =item Performance Enhancements
241 Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There
242 may well be none in a stable release.
244 =item Installation and Configuration Improvements
246 Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools
249 =item Selected Bug Fixes
251 Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here.
252 Bug fixes in files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarised in
253 L</Modules and Pragmata>.
255 =item New or Changed Diagnostics
257 New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here.
259 =item Changed Internals
261 Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here.
265 Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here. Changes to existing files
266 in F<t/> aren't worth summarising, although the bugs that they represent
269 B<FIXME> - this could be automated, at least as far as generating a first
276 Start with a clean exploded tarball of the previous release, and a clean
277 checkout of the branch in question
281 Take the F<MANIFEST> file of each
285 Search for lines matching C<m!t/.*\.t!> (and I think also for new tests in
294 For each file only in the newer F<MANIFEST>
300 Grab the description line from F<MANIFEST>
304 Write out an =item section with the filename, and description, just like
305 L<http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob/maint-5.10:/pod/perl5101delta.pod>
313 Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any
314 tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here, unless
315 they were specific to a particular platform (see below).
319 Add any new known deprecations here.
321 =item Platform Specific Notes
323 Any changes specific to a particular platform. VMS and Win32 are the usual
324 stars here. It's probably best to group changes under the same section layout
325 as the main perldelta.
329 If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary
332 =item Acknowledgements
334 The list of people to thank goes here.
338 This doesn't usually need to be changed from the previous perldelta.
342 This doesn't usually need to be changed from the previous perldelta.