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5 <title>How To Release LLVM To The Public</title>
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10 <div class="doc_title">How To Release LLVM To The Public</div>
11 <p class="doc_warning">NOTE: THIS DOCUMENT IS A WORK IN PROGRESS!</p>
13 <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
14 <li><a href="#process">Release Process</a></li>
16 <div class="doc_author">
17 <p>Written by <a href="mailto:rspencer@x10sys.com">Reid Spencer</a></p>
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21 <div class="doc_section"><a name="introduction">Introduction</a></div>
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24 <div class="doc_text">
25 <p>This document collects information about successfully releasing LLVM to the
26 public. It is the release manager's guide to ensuring that a high quality build
27 of LLVM is released. Mostly, it's just a bunch of reminders of things to do at
28 release time so we don't inadvertently ship something that is utility
32 There are three main tasks for building a release of LLVM:
34 <li>Create the LLVM source distribution.</li>
35 <li>Create the LLVM GCC source distribtuion.</li>
36 <li>Create a set of LLVM GCC binary distribtuions for each supported
37 platform. These binary distributions must include compiled versions
38 of the libraries found in <tt>llvm/runtime</tt> from the LLVM
39 source distribution created in Step 1.</li>
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45 <div class="doc_section"><a name="process">Release Process</a></div>
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48 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
49 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="overview">Process Overview</a></div>
50 <div class="doc_text">
52 <li><a href="#updocs">Update Documentation</a></li>
53 <li><a href="#merge">Merge Branches</a></li>
54 <li><a href="#deps">Make LibDeps.txt</a></li>
55 <li><a href="#settle">Settle LLVM HEAD</a></li>
56 <li><a href="#tag">Tag LLVM and Create the Release Branch</a></li>
57 <li><a href="#build">Build LLVM</a></li>
58 <li><a href="#check">Run 'make check'</a></li>
59 <li><a href="#test">Run LLVM Test Suite</a></li>
60 <li><a href="#dist">Build the LLVM Source Distributions</a></li>
61 <li><a href="#llvmgccbin">Build the LLVM GCC Binary Distribution</a></li>
65 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
66 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="updocs">Update Documentation</a></div>
67 <div class="doc_text">
69 Review the documentation and ensure that it is up to date. The Release Notes
70 must be updated to reflect bug fixes, new known issues, and changes in the
71 list of supported platforms. The Getting Started Guide should be updated to
72 reflect the new release version number tag avaiable from CVS and changes in
73 basic system requirements.
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78 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="merge">Merge Branches</a></div>
79 <div class="doc_text">
81 Merge any work done on branches intended for release into mainline. Finish and
82 commit all new features or bug fixes that are scheduled to go into the release.
83 Work that is not to be incorporated into the release should not be merged from
84 branchs or commited from developer's working directories.
88 From this point until the release branch is created, developers should
90 commit changes to the llvm and llvm-gcc CVS repositories unless it is a bug
91 fix <em>for the release</em>.
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96 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="deps">Make LibDeps.txt</a></div>
97 <div class="doc_text">
98 <p>Rebuild the <tt>LibDeps.txt</tt> target in <tt>utils/llvm-config</tt>. This
99 makes sure that the <tt>llvm-config</tt> utility remains relevant for the
100 release, reflecting any changes in the library dependencies.</p>
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105 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="settle">Settle CVS HEAD</a></div>
106 <div class="doc_text">
108 Use the nightly test reports and 'make check' (deja-gnu based tests) to
109 ensure that recent changes and merged branches have not destabilized LLVM.
110 Platforms which are used less often should be given special attention as they
111 are the most likely to break from commits from the previous step.
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116 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="tag">CVS Tag And Branch</a></div>
117 <div class="doc_text">
118 <p>Tag and branch the CVS HEAD using the following procedure:</p>
121 Request all developers to refrain from committing. Offenders get commit
122 rights taken away (temporarily).
126 The Release Manager updates his/her llvm, llvm-test, and llvm-gcc source
128 latest sources from mainline CVS. The Release Manage may want to consider
129 using a new working directory for this to keep current uncommitted work
130 separate from release work.
134 The Release Manager tags his/her llvm, llvm-test, and llvm-gcc working
136 "ROOT_RELEASE_XX" where XX is the major and minor
137 release numbers (you can't have . in a cvs tag name). So, for Release 1.2,
138 XX=12 and for Release 1.10, XX=110.
142 Immediately create cvs branches based on the ROOT_RELEASE_XX tag. The tag
143 should be "release_XX" (where XX matches that used for the ROOT_RELEASE_XX
144 tag). This is where the release distribution will be created.
148 Advise developers they can work on CVS HEAD again.
152 The Release Manager and any developers working on the release should switch
153 to the release branch (as all changes to the release will now be done in
154 the branch). The easiest way to do this is to grab another working copy
155 using the following commands:
158 <tt>cvs -d <CVS Repository> co -r release_XX llvm</tt><br>
159 <tt>cvs -d <CVS Repository> co -r release_XX llvm-test</tt><br>
160 <tt>cvs -d <CVS Repository> co -r release_XX llvm-gcc</tt><br>
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166 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="build">Build LLVM</a></div>
167 <div class="doc_text">
169 Build both debug and release (optimized) versions of LLVM on all
170 platforms. Ensure the build is warning and error free on each platform.
174 Build a new version of the LLVM GCC front-end after building the LLVM tools.
175 Once that is complete, go back to the LLVM source tree and build and install
176 the <tt>llvm/runtime</tt> libraries.
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181 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="check">Run 'make check'</a></div>
182 <div class="doc_text">
183 <p>Run <tt>make check</tt> and ensure there are no unexpected failures. If
184 there are, resolve the failures, commit them back into the release branch,
185 and restart testing by <a href="#build">re-building LLVM</a>.
189 Ensure that 'make check' passes on all platforms for all targets. If certain
190 failures cannot be resolved before release time, determine if marking them
191 XFAIL is appropriate. If not, fix the bug and go back. The test suite must
192 complete with "0 unexpected failures" for release.
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197 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="test">LLVM Test Suite</a></div>
198 <div class="doc_text">
199 <p>Run the llvm-test suite and ensure there are no unacceptable failures.
200 If there are, resolve the failures and go back to
201 <a href="#build">re-building LLVM</a>. The test suite
202 should be run in Nightly Test mode. All tests must pass.
205 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
206 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="dist">Build the LLVM Source Distributions</a></div>
207 <div class="doc_text">
209 Create source distributions for LLVM, LLVM GCC, and the LLVM Test Suite by
211 from CVS and archiving it. This can be done with the following commands:
215 <tt>cvs -d <CVS Repository> export -r release_XX llvm</tt><br>
216 <tt>cvs -d <CVS Repository> export -r release_XX llvm-test</tt><br>
217 <tt>cvs -d <CVS Repository> export -r release_XX llvm-gcc</tt><br>
218 <tt>mkdir cfrontend; mv llvm-gcc cfrontend/src</tt><br>
219 <tt>tar -cvf - llvm | gzip > llvm-X.X.tar.gz</tt><br>
220 <tt>tar -cvf - llvm-test | gzip > llvm-test-X.X.tar.gz</tt><br>
221 <tt>tar -cvf - cfrontend/src | gzip > cfrontend-X.X.source.tar.gz</tt><br>
225 two step process. First, use "make dist" to simply build the distribution. Any
226 failures need to be corrected (on the branch). Once "make dist" can be
227 successful, do "make dist-check". This target will do the same thing as the
228 'dist' target but also test that distribution to make sure it works. This
229 ensures that needed files are not missing and that the src tarball can be
230 successfully unbacked, built, installed, and cleaned. This two-level testing
231 needs to be done on each target platform.
235 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
236 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="llvmgccbin">Build the LLVM GCC Binary Distribution</a></div>
237 <div class="doc_text">
239 Creating the LLVM GCC binary distribution requires performing the following
240 steps for each supported platform:
245 Build the LLVM GCC front-end. The LLVM GCC front-end must be installed in
246 a directory named <tt>cfrontend/<platform>/llvm-gcc</tt>. For
247 example, the Sparc/Solaris directory is named
248 <tt>cfrontend/sparc/llvm-gcc</tt>.
252 Build the libraries in <tt>llvm/runtime</tt> and install them into the
253 created LLVM GCC installation directory.
257 For systems with non-distributable header files (e.g. Solaris), manually
258 remove header files that the GCC build process has "fixed." This process
259 is admittedly painful, but not as bad as it looks; these header files are
260 almost always easily identifiable with simple grep expressions and are
261 installed in only a few directories in the GCC installation directory.
265 Add the copyright files and header file fix script.
269 Archive and compress the installation directory. These can be found in
270 previous releases of the LLVM-GCC front-end.
276 <!-- ======================================================================= -->
277 <div class="doc_subsection"><a name="release">Release</a></div>
278 <div class="doc_text">
279 <p>Release the distribution tarball to the public. This consists of generating
280 several tarballs. The first set, the source distributions, are automatically
281 generated by the "make dist" and "make dist-check". There are gzip, bzip2, and
282 zip versions of these bundles.</p>
283 <p>The second set of tarballs is the binary release. When "make dist-check"
284 succeeds, it will have created an _install directory into which it installed
285 the binary release. You need to rename that directory as "llvm" and then
286 create tarballs from the contents of that "llvm" directory.</p>
287 <p>Finally, use rpm to make an rpm package based on the llvm.spec file. Don't
288 forget to update the version number, documentation, etc. in the llvm.spec
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301 <a href="mailto:rspencer@x10sys.com">Reid Spencer</a><br>
302 <a href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a>
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