python-peps/pep-0101.txt

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PEP: 101
Title: Doing Python Releases 101
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author: barry@python.org (Barry Warsaw), guido@python.org (Guido van Rossum)
Status: Active
Type: Informational
Created: 22-Aug-2001
Post-History:
Abstract
Making a Python release is a thrilling and crazy process. You've heard
the expression "herding cats"? Imagine trying to also saddle those
purring little creatures up, and ride them into town, with some of their
buddies firmly attached to your bare back, anchored by newly sharpened
claws. At least they're cute, you remind yourself.
Actually, no that's a slight exaggeration <wink>. The Python release
process has steadily improved over the years and now, with the help of our
amazing community, is really not too difficult. This PEP attempts to
collect, in one place, all the steps needed to make a Python release. It
is organized as a recipe and you can actually print this out and check
items off as you complete them.
How to Make A Release
Here are the steps taken to make a Python release. Some steps are
more fuzzy than others because there's little that can be
automated (e.g. writing the NEWS entries). Where a step is
usually performed by An Expert, the role of that expert is given.
Otherwise, assume the step is done by the Release Manager (RM),
the designated person performing the release. The roles and their
current experts are:
* RM = Release Manager: Benjamin Peterson <benjamin@python.org> (US/Central)
* WE = Windows: Martin von Loewis <martin@v.loewis.de> (Central Europe)
* ME = Mac: Ronald Oussoren <ronaldoussoren@mac.com> (Central Europe)
* DE = Docs: Georg Brandl <georg@python.org> (Central Europe)
* IE = Idle Expert: ??
NOTE: It is highly recommended that the RM contact the Experts the day
before the release. Because the world is round and everyone lives
in different timezones, the RM must ensure that the release tag is
created in enough time for the Experts to cut binary releases.
IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU AT LEAST TAG THE TREE 24 HOURS
BEFORE A FINAL RELEASE. This will give the Experts enough time to
do their bits before the announcement goes out.
In any case, the RM MUST wait for the "green light" from the
following experts before updating the web pages and sending the
announcement: WE, DE
XXX: We should include a dependency graph to illustrate the steps
that can be taken in parallel, or those that depend on other
steps.
As much as possible, the release steps are automated and guided by the
release script, which is available in the Python sandbox. The release
script is currently being maintained here:
http://svn.python.org/view/sandbox/trunk/release/
We use the following conventions in the examples below. Where a release
number is given, it is of the form X.YaZ, e.g. 2.6a3 for Python 2.6 alpha
3, where "a" == alpha, "b" == beta, "rc" == release candidate.
Final releases are named "releaseXY". The branch tag is "releaseXY-maint"
because this will point to the long lived maintenance branch. The fork
tag on the trunk is "releaseXY-fork". If a micro release number is used,
then we'll say X.Y.MaZ.
This helps by performing several automatic editing steps, and guides you
to perform some manual editing steps.
___ Log into irc.freenode.net and join the #python-dev channel.
You probably need to coordinate with other people around the world.
This IRC channel is where we've arranged to meet.
___ Impose a check-in freeze by sending email to python-committers@python.org
At this point, nobody except the RM or his duly assigned agents should
make any commits to the branches. The assigned agents are either from
the list above or by coordination as necessary. If a checkin needs to
be made, make sure to state in the checkin comment that the change was
approved. If the RM screwed up and some desperate last minute change to
the branch is necessary, it can mean extra work for others. So try to
avoid this!
The RM has full authority to revert any unapproved commits.
___ Check to see if there are any showstopper bugs.
Go to http://bugs.python.org and look for any open bugs that can block
this release. You're looking at the Priority of the open bugs for the
release you're making; here are the relevant definitions:
release blocker - Stops the release dead in its tracks. You may not
make any release with any open release blocker bugs.
deferred blocker - Doesn't block this release, but it will block a
future release. You many not make a final or
candidate release with any open deferred blocker
bugs.
critical - Important bugs that should be fixed, but which does not block
a release.
Review the release blockers and either resolve them, bump them down to
deferred, or stop the release and ask for community assistance. If
you're making a final or candidate release, do the same with any open
deferred.
___ Check the stable buildbots.
Go to http://www.python.org/dev/buildbot/stable/
(the trailing slash is required). Look at the buildbots for the release
you're making. Ignore any that are offline (or inform the community so
they can be restarted). If what remains are (mostly) green buildbots,
you're good to go. If you have non-offline red buildbots, you may want
to hold up the release until they are fixed. Review the problems and
use your judgement, taking into account whether you are making an alpha,
beta, or final release.
___ Regenerate Lib/pydoc-topics.py
cd to the Doc directory and type ``make pydoc-topics``. Then copy
``build/pydoc-topics/pydoc-topics.py`` to ``../Lib/pydoc_topics.py``.
___ Check the docs for markup errors
In the Doc directory, type ``make suspicious``. If any markup errors
are found, fix them.
___ Bump version numbers via the release script.
.../sandbox/release/release.py --bump X.YaZ
This automates updating various release numbers, but you will have to
modify a few files manually. If your $EDITOR environment variable is
set up correctly, release.py will pop up editor windows with the files
you need to edit.
It is important to update the Misc/NEWS file, however in recent years,
this has become easier as the community is responsible for most of the
content of this file. You should only need to review the text for
sanity, and update the release date with today's date.
___ Check the years on the copyright notice. If the last release
was some time last year, add the current year to the copyright
notice in several places:
___ README
___ LICENSE (make sure to change on trunk and the branch)
___ Python/getcopyright.c
___ Doc/README.txt (at the end)
___ Doc/copyright.rst
___ Doc/license.rst
___ PC/python_nt.rc sets up the DLL version resource for Windows
(displayed when you right-click on the DLL and select
Properties).
___ The license.ht file for the distribution on the website
contains what purports to be an HTML-ized copy of the LICENSE
file from the distribution. You'll need to bump the version number to
the one you're releasing. BROKEN
___ Check with the IE (if there is one <wink>) to be sure that
Lib/idlelib/NEWS.txt has been similarly updated.
___ For a final release, edit the first paragraph of
Doc/whatsnew/X.Y.rst to include the actual release date; e.g. "Python
2.5 was released on August 1, 2003." There's no need to edit this for
alpha or beta releases. Note that Andrew Kuchling often takes care of
this.
___ If this is a final major release, branch the tree for X.Y
When making a major release (e.g., for 2.6), you must create the
long-lived maintenance branch. To create a _branch_ (e.g.,
release26-maint), do the following:
.../sandbox/release/release.py --branch X.Y
___ If you just made the release branch, check out a clean version
into a new directory. You'll be doing the release from this new
branch.
% svn co \
svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/python/branches/release26-maint
___ Set the original trunk up to be the next release.
% .../sandbox/release/release.py --bump 2.7a0
___ Edit all version references in the README
___ Move any historical "what's new" entries from Misc/NEWS to
Misc/HISTORY.
___ The LICENSE file. Add the pending version to the list of
releases, and be sure to check the release dates.
___ There's a copy of the license in Doc/license.rst
___ Doc/tutorial/interpreter.rst (2 references to '[Pp]ython26', one
to 'Python 2.6').
___ Doc/tutorial/stdlib.rst and Doc/tutorial/stdlib2.rst, which have
each one reference to '[Pp]ython26'.
___ Update the version number in configure.in and re-run autoconf.
___ Update the version numbers for the Windows builds in PC/ and
PCbuild/, which have references to python26.
% find PC/ PCbuild/ \( -type f -and -not -wholename '*/.svn/*' \) | xargs sed -i 's/python26/python27/g'
% svn mv PC/os2emx/python26.def PC/os2emx/python27.def
___ cd release26-maint # cd into the branch directory.
___ Tag the release for X.YaZ
.../sandbox/release/release.py --tag X.YaZ
___ STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
At this point you must receive the "green light" from other experts in
order to create the release. There are things you can do while you wait
though, so keep reading until you hit the next STOP.
___ Forward the commit message that created the tag to python-committers and
ask that the experts build the binaries. Currently, this is only the WE.
___ XXX The WE builds the Windows helpfile, using (in Doc/) either
$ make htmlhelp (on Unix)
or
> make.bat htmlhelp (on Windows)
to create suitable input for HTML Help Workshop in
build/htmlhelp. HTML Help Workshop is then fired up on the
created python26.hhp file, finally resulting in an
python26.chm file. He then copies the file into the Doc
directories of the build trees (once for each target architecture).
XXX The CHM file should also be scp'd to the docs download location.
___ XXX The WE then generates Windows installer files for each Windows
target architecture (for Python 2.6, this means x86
and AMD64). He has one checkout tree per target architecture,
and builds the pcbuild.sln project for the appropriate
architecture. He then edits Tools/msi/config.py to update
full_current_version, sets snapshot to False and runs msi.py with
ActivePython 2.5 or Python 2.5 with pywin32.
For that to work, the following prerequisites must be met:
- PC\icons.mak must have been run with nmake.
- The cmd.exe window in which this is run must have Cygwin/bin
in its path (atleast for x86).
- The cmd.exe window must have MS compiler tools for the target
architecture in its path (VS 2003 for x86, the platform
SDK for AMD64).
- The cmd.exe window must also have cabarc.exe from the CAB SDK
in its path.
The WE checksums the files (*.msi and *.chm), uploads them to
some place in the net, and emails you the location and md5sums.
___ Time to build the source tarball. If you created a branch, be
sure to cd to your working directory for the branch. E.g.
% cd .../python26
___ Do a "svn update ; svn status" in this directory.
You should not see any files. I.e. you better not have any uncommitted
changes in your working directory, but you may pick up some of the
expert's last minute changes.
___ If you've seen updates to existing files and you want these to make it
into the release, update the branches.
___ Delete the old tag branch and re-tag the tree
___ Delete the maintenance branch and re-branch the trunk.
This should be rare and indicates a breakdown in the process.
___ Use the release script to create the source gzip and bz2 tarballs, md5
checksums, documentation tar and zip files, and gpg signature files.
.../sandbox/release/release.py --export X.YaZ
This will leave all the relevant files in a subdirectory called 'dist',
and the built docs in 'dist/docs'.
___ scp or rsync all the files to your home directory on dinsdale.python.org.
While you're waiting for the files to finish uploading, you can continue
on with the remaining tasks. You can also ask folks on #python-dev
and/or python-committers to download the files as they finish uploading
so that they can test them on their platforms as well.
___ Now you want to perform the very important step of checking the
tarball you just created, to make sure a completely clean,
virgin build passes the regression test. Here are the best
steps to take:
% cd /tmp
% tar xzvf ~/Python-2.6c2.tgz # tar xjvf ~/Python-2.6c2.tar.bz2
% cd Python-2.6c2
% ls
(Do things look reasonable?)
% ls Lib
(Are there stray .pyc files?)
% ls Doc/tools
(Make sure it doesn't contain "docutils", "sphinx", "jinja" or
"pygments" directories. Also look for stray .pyc files.)
% ./configure
(Loads of configure output)
% make test
(Do all the expected tests pass?)
If you're feeling lucky and have some time to kill, or if you are making
a release candidate or final release, run the full test suite:
% make TESTOPTS='-u all' test
If the tests pass, then you can feel good that the tarball is
fine. If some of the tests fail, or anything else about the
freshly unpacked directory looks weird, you better stop now and
figure out what the problem is.
___ Now you need to go to dinsdale.python.org and move all the files
in place over there. Our policy is that every Python version gets its
own directory, but each directory may contain several releases. We keep
all old releases, moving them into a "prev" subdirectory when we have a
new release.
So, there's a directory called "2.6" which contains Python-2.6a2.exe and
Python-2.6a2.tgz, along with a "prev" subdirectory containing
Python-2.6a1.msi, Python-2.6a1.tgz, Python-2.6a1.tar.bz2, etc.
___ On dinsdale, cd /data/ftp.python.org/pub/python/X.Y[.Z]
creating it if necessary.
___ Move the previous release files to a directory called 'prev'
creating the directory if necessary (make sure the directory has
g+ws bits on). If this is the first alpha release of a new Python
version, skip this step.
For pre-releases (alpha, beta, rc), don't move things into a 'prev'
directory, You'll move everything in there when the final release
comes out.
___ Move the release .tgz, tar.bz2, and .msi files into place
Make sure they are world readable. They should also be group
writable, and group-owned by webmaster.
___ md5sum the files and make sure they got uploaded intact.
___ If this is a final release: Move the doc zips and tarballs to
/data/ftp.python.org/pub/python/doc/X.Y[.Z] creating the directory
if necessary, and adapt the "current" symlink in .../doc to point to
that directory. Note though that if you're releasing a maintenance
release for an older version, don't change the current link.
___ If this is a final release (even a maintenance release), also unpack
the HTML docs to
/data/ftp.python.org/pub/docs.python.org/release/X.Y[.Z].
___ Let the DE check if the docs are built and work all right.
___ If this is a major release: Tell the DE to adapt redirects for
docs.python.org/X.Y in the Apache config for docs.python.org, update
the script Doc/tools/dailybuild.py to point to the right
stable/development branches, and to install it and make the initial
checkout.
___ For the extra paranoid, do a completely clean test of the
release. This includes downloading the tarball from
www.python.org.
Make sure the md5 checksums match. Then unpack the tarball,
and do a clean make test.
% make distclean
% ./configure
% make test
To ensure that the regression test suite passes. If not, you
screwed up somewhere!
Now it's time to twiddle the web site.
To do these steps, you must have the permission to edit the website. If you
don't have that, ask someone on pydotorg@python.org for the proper
permissions. It's insane for you not to have it.
I'm not going to go into the details of building the site or pushing it
live. Plenty of people on pydotorg can help you, and there's a good README
once you get the branch. All the directories below are named relative to
the data subdirectory unless otherwise noted.
This page will probably come in handy:
http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/user/rst/quickref.html
None of the web site updates are automated by release.py.
___ Build the basic site.
In the top directory, do an `svn update` to get the latest code. In the
build subdirectory, do `make` to build the site. Do `make serve` to
start service the pages on localhost:8005. Hit that url to see the site
as it is right now. At any time you can re-run `make` to update the
local site. You don't have to restart the server.
Don't `svn commit` until you're all done!
___ If this is the first release for this version (even a new patch
version), you'll need to create a subdirectory inside download/releases
to hold the new version files. It's probably a good idea to copy an
existing recent directory and twiddle the files in there for the new
version number.
___ Add a news section item to the front page by editing newsindex.yml. The
format should be pretty self evident.
___ If this is a final release...
___ update the 'Quick Links' section on the front page. Edit the
top-level `content.ht` file.
___ update the download page, editing `download/content.ht`
___ edit the previous release's last release content.ht page to point to
the new release.
___ Mention the release as the most recent stable one in
`doc/faq/general/content.ht` (section "How stable is Python?")
___ update `doc/content.ht` to indicate the new current documentation
version, and remove the current version from any 'in development'
section. Update the version in the "What's New" link.
___ Add the new version to `doc/versions/content.ht`.
___ Edit download/releases/content.ht to update the version numbers for
this release. There are a bunch of places you need to touch:
___ The subdirectory name as the first element in the Nav rows.
___ Possibly the Releases section, and possibly in the experimental
releases section if this is an alpha, beta or release candidate.
___ Update the version specific pages.
___ cd to download/releases/X.Y.Z
___ Edit the version numbers in content.ht
___ Comment out the link to the documentation if this is not a final,
remove the comment if it is.
___ Copy the new .asc files into place
___ Update the md5 checksums
___ Copy Misc/NEWS to download/releases/X.Y.Z/NEWS.txt
___ Copy Lib/idlelib/NEWS.txt to download/releases/X.Y.Z/IDLENEWS.txt
Note, you don't have to copy the actual .tgz or tar.bz2 tarballs into
this directory because they only live on dinsdale in the ftp directory.
___ When everything looks good, `svn commit` in the data directory. This
will trigger the live site to update itself, and at that point the
release is live.
Now it's time to write the announcement for the mailing lists. This is the
fuzzy bit because not much can be automated. You can use an earlier
announcement as a template, but edit it for content!
___ STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
___ Have you gotten the green light from the WE?
___ Have you gotten the green light from the DE?
___ Once the announcement is ready, send it to the following
addresses:
python-list@python.org
python-announce@python.org
python-dev@python.org
Now it's time to do some cleaning up. These steps are very important!
___ If you made a non-maintenance branch, be sure to merge it into
the trunk! Now that we've released this branch, we don't need it any
more. We've already tagged it so we can always reproduce it. Note that
merging branches is a bit of a black art, but here's what's worked for
us.
NOTE: If this was an X.Y major release, we will be using this as
the maintenance branch for a long time to come.
___ Check out a completely clean, virgin working directory of the
trunk, by doing this in the directory that is the parent of
your branch working directory python-XYaZ:
% svn co \
svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/python/trunk python-clean
___ Run a diff against your branch by doing this in the common
parent directory containing both python-clean and python-XYaZ:
% diff -r python-clean python-26a2 | grep ^diff | grep -v /.svn/ \
> /tmp/diffcmd.sh
___ Edit diffcmd.sh to get rid of files that you know don't have
important changes. You're looking for files that have updates
in the branch that haven't made it to the trunk.
Generally you can ignore any changes to the Doc or Mac
subdirectories, or any changes to Windows related files. The
sub-RMs for those parts will take care of any necessary merges
from the branch to the trunk.
If you've been diligent about merging changes from the trunk
into the branch, there shouldn't be many of these files.
___ Edit /tmp/diffcmd.sh, changing all the -r's into -u's. Run
the /tmp/diffcmd.sh command like so:
% sh /tmp/diffcmd.sh > /tmp/pydiff.txt
___ Attempt to patch your python-clean working directory. Do this
first, noting that --dry-run does not actually apply any
patches, it just makes sure that the patch command runs
successfully to completion:
% patch -p1 --dry-run < /tmp/pydiff.txt
___ If this goes well, run it again, taking out the --dry-run
option. If this fails, or if it prompts you for a file to
patch, try using -p0 instead of -p1. Otherwise, your diff
command was messed up, so try again.
___ cd to python-clean and do a "svn commit". Use as your log
message something like "Merging the rXYaZ-maint tag back into
the trunk".
___ Do the guided post-release steps with the release script.
.../sandbox/release/release.py --done X.YaZ
Review and commit these changes.
___ Send email to python-committers informing them that the branch has been
unfrozen.
___ Update any release PEPs (e.g. 361) with the release dates.
___ Update the tracker at http://bugs.python.org:
___ Flip all the deferred blocker issues back to release blocker
for the next release.
___ Add version X.Y+1 as when version X.Y enters alpha.
___ Change non-doc RFEs to version X.Y+1 when version X.Y enters beta.
___ Update 'behavior' issues from versions that your release make
unsupported to the next supported version.
___ Review open issues, as this might find lurking showstopper bugs,
besides reminding people to fix the easy ones they forgot about.
What Next?
___ Verify! Pretend you're a user: download the files from python.org, and
make Python from it. This step is too easy to overlook, and on several
occasions we've had useless release files. Once a general server problem
caused mysterious corruption of all files; once the source tarball got
built incorrectly; more than once the file upload process on SF truncated
files; and so on.
___ Rejoice. Drink. Be Merry. Write a PEP like this one. Or be
like unto Guido and take A Vacation.
You've just made a Python release!
Windows Notes
Windows has a MSI installer, various flavors of Windows have
"special limitations", and the Windows installer also packs
precompiled "foreign" binaries (Tcl/Tk, expat, etc). So Windows
testing is tiresome but very necessary.
Concurrent with uploading the installer, the WE installs Python
from it twice: once into the default directory suggested by the
installer, and later into a directory with embedded spaces in its
name. For each installation, he runs the full regression suite
from a DOS box, and both with and without -0. For maintenance
release, he also tests whether upgrade installations succeed.
He also tries *every* shortcut created under Start -> Menu -> the
Python group. When trying IDLE this way, you need to verify that
Help -> Python Documentation works. When trying pydoc this way
(the "Module Docs" Start menu entry), make sure the "Start
Browser" button works, and make sure you can search for a random
module (like "random" <wink>) and then that the "go to selected"
button works.
It's amazing how much can go wrong here -- and even more amazing
how often last-second checkins break one of these things. If
you're "the Windows geek", keep in mind that you're likely the
only person routinely testing on Windows, and that Windows is
simply a mess.
Repeat the testing for each target architecture. On XP/2003, try
both an Admin and a plain User (not Power User) account. If you
can, also test the installer on Windows 9x.
WRT Step 5 above (verify the release media), since by the time
release files are ready to download the WE has generally run many
Windows tests on the installer he uploaded, he usually doesn't do
anything for Step 5 except a full byte-comparison ("fc /b" if
using a Windows shell) of the downloaded file against the file he
uploaded.
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
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