This document collects information about successfully releasing LLVM to the -public. It is the release manager's guide to ensuring that a high quality build -of LLVM is released. Mostly, its just a bunch of reminders of things to do at -release time so we don't inadvertently ship something that is utility -deficient.

+ This document collects information about successfully releasing LLVM + (including subprojects llvm-gcc and Clang) to the public. + It is the release manager's responsibility to ensure that a high quality + build of LLVM is released. +

LLVM is released on a time based schedule (currently every 6 months). We + do not have dot releases because of the nature of LLVM incremental + development philosophy. The release schedule is roughly as follows: +

Set code freeze and branch creation date for 6 months after last code freeze +date. Announce release schedule to the LLVM community and update the website.
Create release branch and begin release process.
Send out pre-release for first round of testing. Testing will last 7-10 days. +During the first round of testing, regressions should be found and fixed. Patches +are merged from mainline to the release branch.
Generate and send out second pre-release. Bugs found during this time will +not be fixed unless absolutely critical. Bugs introduce by patches merged in +will be fixed and if so, a 3rd round of testing is needed.
The release notes should be updated during the first and second round of +pre-release testing.
Finally, release!

Merge Branches
Release Administrative Tasks

Create Release Branch
Update Version Numbers

Building the Release

Build the LLVM Source Distributions
Build LLVM
Run 'make check'
Run LLVM Test Suite
make LibDeps.txt
cvs tag
make dist
release
Build the LLVM-GCC Binary Distribution
Build the Clang Binary Distribution
Target Specific Build Details

Release Qualification Criteria

Qualify LLVM
Qualify LLVM-GCC
Qualify Clang
Specific Target Qualification Details

Community Testing
Release Patch Rules
Release final tasks

Update Documentation
Tag the LLVM Release Branch
Update the LLVM Demo Page
Update the LLVM Website
Announce the Release

Merge any work done on branches intended for release into mainline.

+This section describes a few administrative tasks that need to be done for the +release process to begin. Specifically, it involves creating the release branch, + resetting version numbers, and creating the release tarballs for the release + team to begin testing.

Build LLVM

Branch the Subversion HEAD using the following procedure:

+
Verify that the current Subversion HEAD is in decent shape by examining + nightly tester or buildbot results.
+
Request all developers to refrain from committing. Offenders get commit + rights taken away (temporarily).

Create the release branch for llvm, llvm-gcc4.2, + clang, and the test-suite. The branch name will be + release_XX,where XX is the major and minor release numbers. + Clang will have a different release number than llvm/ + llvm-gcc4 since its first release was years later + (still deciding if this will be true or not). These branches + can be created without checking out anything from subversion. +

+ +

+svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk \
+         https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/branches/release_XX
+svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-gcc-4.2/trunk \
+         https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-gcc-4.2/branches/release_XX
+svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/trunk \
+         https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/branches/release_XX
+svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/trunk \
+         https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/branches/release_XX
+

+ +

+
Advise developers they can work on Subversion HEAD again.

The Release Manager should switch to the release branch (as all changes + to the release will now be done in the branch). The easiest way to do this + is to grab another working copy using the following commands:

+ +

+svn co https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/branches/release_XX
+svn co https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-gcc-4.2/branches/release_XX
+svn co https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/branches/release_XX
+svn co https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/branches/release_XX
+

Run make check and ensure there are no unexpected failures. If - there are, resolve the failures and go back to step 2.

+ After creating the LLVM release branch, update the release branches' + autoconf/configure.ac version from X.Xsvn to just X.X. Update it on mainline + as well to be the next version (X.X+1svn). Regenerated the configure script + for both. This must be done for both llvm and the + test-suite. +

FIXME: Add a note about clang.

In addition, the version number of all the Bugzilla components must be + updated for the next release. +

Run the llvm-test suite and ensure there are no unacceptable failures. - If there are, resolve the failures and go back to step 2.

+ Create source distributions for LLVM, LLVM-GCC, + clang, and the llvm test-suite by exporting the source from + Subversion and archiving it. This can be done with the following commands: +

+ +

+svn export https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/branches/release_XX llvm-X.X
+svn export https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-gcc-4.2/branches/release_XX llvm-gcc4.2-X.X.source
+svn export https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/branches/release_XX llvm-test-X.X
+svn export https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/branches/release_XX clang-X.X
+tar -czvf - llvm-X.X          | gzip > llvm-X.X.tar.gz
+tar -czvf - llvm-test-X.X     | gzip > llvm-test-X.X.tar.gz
+tar -czvf - llvm-gcc4.2-X.X.source | gzip > llvm-gcc-4.2-X.X.source.tar.gz
+tar -czvf - clang-X.X | gzip > clang-X.X.tar.gz
+

Rebuild the LibDeps.txt target in utils/llvm-config. This - makes sure that the llvm-config utility remains relevant for the - release, reflecting any changes in the library dependencies.

+The build of llvm, llvm-gcc, and clang must be free +of errors and warnings in both debug, release, and release-asserts builds. +If all builds are clean, then the release passes build qualification. + +

debug: ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=0
release: ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1
release-asserts: ENABLE_OPTIMIZED=1 DISABLE_ASSERTIONS=1

Tag the release.

+ Build both debug, release (optimized), and release-asserts versions of + LLVM on all supported platforms. Direction to build llvm are + here. +

+ Creating the LLVM GCC binary distribution (release/optimized) requires + performing the following steps for each supported platform: +

+ +

+ Build the LLVM GCC front-end by following the directions in the README.LLVM + file. The frontend must be compiled with c, c++, objc (mac only), + objc++ (mac only) and fortran support.
Please boostrap as well.
Be sure to build with LLVM_VERSION_INFO=X.X, where X is the major and + minor release numbers. +
+ Copy the installation directory to a directory named for the specific target. + For example on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the directory would be named + llvm-gcc4.2-2.6-x86-linux-RHEL4. Archive and compress the new directory. +

+ Creating the Clang binary distribution (debug/release/release-asserts) requires + performing the following steps for each supported platform: +

+ +

+ Build clang according to the directions + here. +
Build both a debug and release version of clang, but the binary + will be a release build.
+ Package clang (details to follow). +

+ The table below specifies which compilers are used for each arch/os combination + when qualifying the build of llvm, llvm-gcc, clang. +

+ +

+ + + + + + + + + + +
Architecture OS compiler
x86-32 Mac OS 10.5 gcc 4.0.1
x86-32 Linux gcc 4.2.X, gcc 4.3.X
x86-32 FreeBSD gcc 4.2.X
x86-32 mingw gcc 3.4.5
x86-64 Mac OS 10.5 gcc 4.0.1
x86-64 Linux gcc 4.2.X, gcc 4.3.X
x86-64 FreeBSD gcc 4.2.X
+

+ +

Architecture	OS	compiler
x86-32	Mac OS 10.5	gcc 4.0.1
x86-32	Linux	gcc 4.2.X, gcc 4.3.X
x86-32	FreeBSD	gcc 4.2.X
x86-32	mingw	gcc 3.4.5
x86-64	Mac OS 10.5	gcc 4.0.1
x86-64	Linux	gcc 4.2.X, gcc 4.3.X
x86-64	FreeBSD	gcc 4.2.X

+ A release is qualified when it has no regressions from the previous + release (or baseline). Regressions are related to correctness only and not + performance at this time. Regressions are new failures in the set of tests that + are used to qualify each product and only include things on the list. + Ultimately, there is no end to the number of possible bugs in a release. We + need a very concrete and definitive release criteria that ensures we have + monotonically improving quality on some metric. The metric we use is + described below. This doesn't mean that we don't care about other things, + but this are things that must be satisfied before a release can go out +

Build the distribution, ensuring it is installable and working

+ LLVM is qualified when it has a clean dejagnu test run without a frontend and + it has no regressions when using either llvm-gcc or clang + with the test-suite from the previous release. +

Release the distribution tarball to the public.

+ LLVM-GCC is qualified when front-end specific tests in the + llvm dejagnu test suite all pass and there are no regressions in + the test-suite.

We do not use the gcc dejagnu test suite as release criteria.

+ Clang is qualified when front-end specific tests in the + llvm dejagnu test suite all pass, clang's own test suite passes + cleanly, and there are no regressions in the test-suite.

+ + + + + + + +
Architecture OS llvm-gcc baseline clang baseline + tests
x86-32 Linux last release last release llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite (including spec)
x86-32 FreeBSD none last release llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite
x86-32 mingw last release none QT
x86-64 Mac OS 10.X last release last release llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite (including spec)
x86-64 Linux last release last release llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite (including spec)
x86-64 FreeBSD none last release llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite

Architecture	OS	llvm-gcc baseline	clang baseline +	tests
x86-32	Linux	last release	last release	llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite (including spec)
x86-32	FreeBSD	none	last release	llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite
x86-32	mingw	last release	none	QT
x86-64	Mac OS 10.X	last release	last release	llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite (including spec)
x86-64	Linux	last release	last release	llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite (including spec)
x86-64	FreeBSD	none	last release	llvm dejagnu, clang tests, test-suite

+ Once all testing has been completed and appropriate bugs filed, the pre-release + tar balls may be put on the website and the LLVM community is notified. Ask that + all LLVM developers test the release in 2 ways:

Download llvm-X.X, llvm-test-X.X, and the appropriate llvm-gcc4 + and/or clang binary. Build LLVM. + Run "make check" and the full llvm-test suite (make TEST=nightly report).
Download llvm-X.X, llvm-test-X.X, and the llvm-gcc4 and/or clang source. + Compile everything. Run "make check" and the full llvm-test suite (make TEST=nightly + report).

Ask LLVM developers to submit the report and make check results to the list. + Attempt to verify that there are no regressions from the previous release. + The results are not used to qualify a release, but to spot other potential + problems. For unsupported targets, verify that make check at least is + clean.

+ +

During the first round of testing time, + all regressions must be fixed before the second pre-release is created.

+ +

If this is the second round of testing, this is only to ensure the bug + fixes previously merged in have not created new major problems. This is not + the time to solve additional and unrelated bugs. If no patches are merged in, + the release is determined to be ready and the release manager may move onto + the next step. +

+ Below are the rules regarding patching the release branch.

Patches applied to the release branch are only applied by the release + manager.

During the first round of testing, patches that fix regressions or that + are small and relatively risk free (verified by the appropriate code owner) + are applied to the branch. Code owners are asked to be very conservative in + approving patches for the branch and we reserve the right to reject any patch + that does not fix a regression as previously defined.

During the remaining rounds of testing, only patches that fix regressions + may be applied.

+ +

+ The final stages of the release process involving taging the release branch, + updating documentation that refers to the release, and updating the demo + page.

FIXME: Add a note if anything needs to be done to the clang website. + Eventually the websites will be merged hopefully.

+ Review the documentation and ensure that it is up to date. The Release Notes + must be updated to reflect bug fixes, new known issues, and changes in the + list of supported platforms. The Getting Started Guide should be updated to + reflect the new release version number tag avaiable from Subversion and + changes in basic system requirements. Merge both changes from mainline into + the release branch. +

Tag the release branch using the following procedure:

+svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/branches/release_XX \
+         https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/tags/RELEASE_XX
+svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-gcc-4.2/branches/release_XX \
+         https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm-gcc-4.2/tags/RELEASE_XX
+svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/branches/release_XX \
+         https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/tags/RELEASE_XX
+

+ The LLVM demo page must be updated to use the new release. This consists of + using the llvm-gcc binary and building LLVM. Update the website demo page + configuration to use the new release.

+ The website must be updated before the release announcement is sent out. Here is + what to do:

Check out the website module from CVS.
Create a new subdirectory X.X in the releases directory.
Commit the llvm, test-suite, llvm-gcc source, + clang source, clang binaries, + and llvm-gcc binaries in this new directory.
Copy and commit the llvm/docs and LICENSE.txt + files into this new directory. The docs should be built with BUILD_FOR_WEBSITE=1.
Commit the index.html to the release/X.X directory to redirect (use from previous + release.
Update the releases/download.html file with the new release.
Update the releases/index.html with the new release and link to + release documentation.
Finally, update the main page (index.html and sidebar) to + point to the new release and release announcement. Make sure this all gets + committed back into Subversion.