Memory Pool System Version Creation Procedure

1. Introduction

This document tells you how to create a new version from the master sources. (For example, if the last version of the MPS is 1.105, with releases 1.105.0 and 1.105.1, this document tells you how to abandon the 1.105 lineage and take a new clone from the master sources to create version 1.106).

Readership: MPS staff. Confidential: no. Status: rough notes, informally peer-reviewed.

Background: refer to PQTCM ("Product Quality Through Change Management", http://www.ravenbrook.com/doc/1999/05/20/pqtcm/) for background, terminology, rationale, and usage guidance. This tells you what "a version" actually is.

2. Preamble

2.1. Do I need this procedure?

You might not need to create a new version. An alternative is to create a further ‘point release’ on the existing version. Refer to PQTCM when deciding. (Summary: am I changing the specification?).

2.2. What is a version?

A version is a ‘clone’ of all the master source files, that then has its own evolution. A version has these parts:

  1. A version name, consisting of a major version number A and a minor version number BBB.

  2. A Perforce branch specification that defines the mapping used between the master sources and the sources on the version branch. By convention, the name of the branch is mps/version/A.BBB: note that we make the branch name exactly match the pathname of that version's sub-tree. For example: 

    $ p4 branch -o mps/version/1.105
Branch:	mps/version/1.105

Description:
	Branching master sources for version 1.105.

View:
	//info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/master/... //info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/version/1.105/...

  3. Cloned (integrated) and submitted files, in the version/A.BBB/... sub-tree. Usually this is a clone of the entire master/... subtree and all its files. These were created in a single change by running p4 integrate -b mps/version/A.BBB. This initial integrate is what populates the version branch with files; before that it was empty. For each of these files, Perforce reports the first action as “branch”. Some files may then be further modified.

  4. Origin: The point in time that the initial integrate was performed, expressed as its changelevel minus one, defines the “Origin” of the version. This is the last change on the master sources that also made it into the version sources by virtue of the initial integrate command.

  5. Entry in the table at //info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/version/.

3. Procedure: How to make a new version

  1. Consider each deprecated feature (by grepping the manual sources for deprecated:: sections) and decide whether it needs to be removed from the version you are about to make (and all subsequent versions). Remove features from the master sources before making the version branch.

  2. Choose the version number for the new version. Typically this has the same major version number as the previous version, and the next minor version number. Thus 1.104 is followed by 1.105. [TODO: when does the major version number change?]

  3. Make sure you have the new version branch mapped to your client workspace: run p4 client and check that there is a mapping for //info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/version/A.BBB/....

  4. In the master sources, edit code/version.c and change MPS_RELEASE to refer to the version you are about to create (using .0 for the release), and update MPSCopyrightNotice to include the current year. Submit this file to Perforce. [Note that MPS_RELEASE in this file is used to populate the release number for the Sphinx documentation: see manual/source/conf.py.]

  5. Determine the origin of the branch: run p4 changes -m 1 //info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/master/... and note the output changelevel (this is called ORIGIN in the examples below).

  6. Make the branch: p4 branch mps/version/A.BBB and edit the branch specification to read as follows:

    Branch:	mps/version/A.BBB

Description:
	Branching master sources for version A.BBB.

View:
	//info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/master/... //info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/version/A.BBB/...

  7. Make sure you have no unsubmitted files, and then run p4 integrate -b mps/version/A.BBB //info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/master/...@ORIGIN and then p4 submit.

  8. Update the table at http://info.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/version/.

  9. Edit Master->Version in documents that erroneously say "Master". Always edit version/A.BBB/index.html, eg. (case-sensitive): 

    "of the Master version"  ->  "of Version A.BBB"
"Master"  ->  "Version A.BBB"

    Less importantly, edit various other files. See change 30260.

  10. Do an empty-integrate of this change back on to the masters, so P4 thinks it's done and doesn't keep suggesting it: 

    p4 integrate -r -b mps/version/A.BBB <Files Edited Master->Version>
p4 resolve -ay <Files Edited Master->Version>

A. References

B. Document History

2005-10-03  RHSK  Created.
2006-12-27  RHSK  Step 0: edit some files on master before making version branch
2007-07-05  RHSK  Releasename now also in w3build.bat.  Make sure all submitted before integ.
2008-10-29  RHSK  Convert from text to html.
2010-11-06  RHSK  Correctly format example of p4 branch -o mps/version/1.105
2013-05-16  GDR   readme.txt doesn’t need updating; w3build.bat no longer exists