11.1 Release Checklist

VERSION.1 Release Checklist

Timeline (tentative)

• YYYY-MM-DD 🚀 Release Kick-off ⚽ (default branch merged to stable)
• YYYY-MM-DD 🛠️ 1st release candidate VERSION.0.90 on https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/octave/
• YYYY-MM-DD 🏁 Final Release 🎉 VERSION.1.0 on https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/

Please use <strike> </strike> to mark items below as done.

🚀 Kick-off ⚽

⚙️ Update stable and default branch to new version numbers

Completion Date:

• Merge default onto stable to become the current stable release (see instructions "Merging the default branch to stable before a release" in etc/HACKING.md).
• Bump version numbers in configure.ac on stable branch (see etc/HACKING.md).
• Bump version numbers in configure.ac on default branch (see etc/HACKING.md).
• Create new etc/NEWS.VERSION+1.md file on default branch by copying etc/NEWS.VERSION.md and then removing text so that it is a template file with headings only.

⚙️ Update gnulib to latest version

Completion Date:

Must occur first as it could resolve existing, or create new, bug reports. Run ./bootstrap in the source tree after updating to the new gnulib version.

⚙️ Update Autoconf macros to latest version

Completion Date:

The following Autoconf macros are under version control in the m4 directory. The contents should be verified against the repository at https://github.com/autoconf-archive/autoconf-archive/tree/master/m4.

   ax_blas.m4
   ax_compare_version.m4
   ax_cxx_compile_stdcxx.m4
   ax_lapack.m4
   ax_openmp.m4
   ax_pthread.m4

The pkg.m4 macro should be verified against the repository at https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf/blob/master/pkg.m4.

📢 Call for bug reports

Completion Date:

• Put out a general call for reports on Octave Discourse for all outstanding, but unreported, known bugs.
• Create Savannah Release tag VERSION.0.90 on bug tracker for 1st release candidate.
• Mark items that should be fixed for the release with this tag.
• Update Savannah Planned Release and Fixed Release fields by adding VERSION.1.0 (current stable) and VERSION+1.1.0 (current default) tags to both.
• Review bug overview at https://octave.space/savannah/.

📢 Update GUI translation files

Completion Date:

• Call for updates (Octave Discourse) that might change GUI strings.
• String freeze date:
• Update language translation files (*.ts). See instructions in libgui/languages/build_ts/README.md.
• Create bug report on Savannah as a centralized location for uploading files and tracking status of translations.
• Call for translations of GUI strings on Octave Discourse Maintainers, CC-ing the translators (see list of translators).
• Collect translation files on Savannah bug report and push to Mercurial.

⚖️ GPL License activities

Completion Date:

• Update copyright statements for all source controlled files.

Command to update copyright notifications

hg locate | xargs sed -i 's/Copyright (C) \([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]\)-2023 The Octave Project Developers/Copyright (C) \1-2024 The Octave Project Developers/; s/Copyright (C) 2023 The Octave Project Developers/Copyright (C) 2023-2024 The Octave Project Developers/'

Command to check results before checking in

hg diff | grep ^[-+][^-+] | sed 's/[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]-/YYYY-/' | sort -u

• Update dates in any other locations
  • MXE README.html file
  • octave.texi, liboctave.texi, refcard.tex

• Add any new contributors to doc/interpreter/contributors.in who wish to be mentioned (don’t add them without permission).

✅ Style-check code base

Completion Date:

This will produce lots of whitespace changes, but no behavior changes. Must occur after patches have been added, since whitespace changes can prevent patches from applying.

• m-file style check
• C++ style check

📖 Review documentation

Completion Date:

• Grammar check documentation (see doc/interpreter/doccheck/README).
• Spell check documentation (make spellcheck).
• Verify no functions missing from manual (make doc/interpreter/undocumented_list).
• Verify deprecated functions removed from manual (*.txi) and from @seealso links.
• Verify all formats (Info, HTML, PDF) build correctly.
• Review etc/NEWS.VERSION.md for any features which should be announced.
• Review __unimplemented__.m for the latest changes to Octave Forge packages and new Matlab functions.
• Update installer-files/README.html in MXE Octave with version highlights.

🔃 Repeat until all bugs are resolved

Completion Date of first iteration:

⚠️ Current state at Savannah

Bug overview at https://octave.space/savannah/.

✅ make check

• Verify make check is passing on all buildbot combinations of OS and compilers and GitHub CI runners. Also check test suite runs on “freshly brewed Octave for Windows” (Kai’s buildbots on octave.space).
• Use software tools to check quality of Octave code.
  • Check for memory leaks by configuring with --enable-address-sanitizer-flags --disable-visibility-flags --disable-docs --disable-java and compiling with -g -O0 in CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS.
  • Check for bad memory accesses by configuring with --disable-visibility-flags --disable-docs --disable-java and compiling with -g -O0 -fsanitize=undefined -fno-omit-frame-pointer in CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, and linking with -fsanitize=undefined -fno-omit-frame-pointer in LDFLAGS.
  • Update static code analysis results.
    • For clang, do scan-build make -j<N> all and then scan-view.
    • See PVS static analyzer - 5.0 Release.
  • Use other tools such as cppcheck, etc.
• Start discussion on Octave Discourse Maintainers about which failing tests that must be fixed and which can be declared WON’T FIX.

🛠️ Create new release candidate

• Ensure correct version information (see "Creating first release candidate for new MAJOR version" and "Release Numbering" in /etc/HACKING.md).
• Verify make dist works.
• Verify make distcheck passes.
• Make Windows binaries (see instructions "Make Windows binaries" in etc/HACKING.md).
• Verify building from a tarball on Linux. Verify that Windows binaries install and run.
• Create a tag in the Mercurial repository on the changeset where the version number was updated (hg tag rc-MAJOR-MINOR-PATCH).
• Sign tarballs and binaries with GPG key.
  • Use script build-aux/make-gnu-fist-files to simplify the procedure.
• Upload release candidates to https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/octave/.
• Announce release candidate on Octave Discourse in both Maintainers and Help categories.

🏁 Final Release 🎉

⚙️ Update version information

Completion Date:

• Ensure correct version information in configure.ac (see “Release Numbering” in etc/HACKING.md)
  • Update AC_INIT macro with version MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH.
  • Set OCTAVE_MINOR_VERSION to version MINOR.
  • Set OCTAVE_PATCH_VERSION to version PATCH.
  • Set OCTAVE_RELEASE_DATE to the current date.
  • Set the year in OCTAVE_COPYRIGHT to the current year.
• Update etc/NEWS.VERSION.md (final release date in Summary header).
• Update CITATION (version, year, URL) if not already done as part of "GPL License activities".
• Update etc/icons/org.octave.Octave.appdata.xml (Add <release> with release date and version number).

🛠️ Build, Verify, Sign, and Upload tarballs and Windows binaries

• Make distribution tarballs and Windows binaries
  • Run make dist on Linux to produce distribution tarballs.
  • Make Windows binaries (see instructions "Make Windows binaries" in etc/HACKING.md).
  • Check Windows Installer (executable and zip formats) against false positive detection at virustotal.com.
• Verify building from a tarball on Linux. Verify that Windows binaries install and run.
• Create a tag in the Mercurial repository on the changeset where the version number was updated (hg tag release-VERSION-1-0).
• Sign tarballs and binaries with GPG key.
  • Use script build-aux/make-gnu-fist-files to simplify the procedure.
• Upload all tarballs to https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/.

🛠️ Update Octave web site, Octave wiki, and Savannah bug tracker

• Update web site files: NEWS-VERSION.html, index.in, news.in, and download.in.

Steps documented in this changeset.

• Upload documentation (manual HTML + PDF at octave.org/doc, version in octave.org/.htaccess, Doxygen at octave.org/doxygen)
• Update Savannah bug tracker Release field to have new release number.
• Update Savannah bug tracker: OPEN bugs marked as WON’T FIX should be marked as CONFIRMED (or more appropriate) for the final release.
• Hide release candidate versions for Release field on Savannah.
• Update Octave wiki
  • Update https://wiki.octave.org/Release_History page.
  • Edit page Template:Release and update release version in code

    <includeonly>MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH</includeonly>

  • Edit page Template:Release Date and update month and day in code

    <includeonly>MONTH DD, {{Release Year}}</includeonly>

  • Edit page Template:Release Year and update year in code

    <includeonly>YYYY</includeonly>

📢 Announce final release

Completion Date:

• Octave mailing-lists (yes, still) help@octave.org and info-gnu@gnu.org.
• Octave web site (https://hg.octave.org/web-octave)

☑️ Post-Release

Completion Date:

• Remove all deprecated functions scheduled for deletion on default branch. These functions are tagged with OCTAVE_DEPRECATED in C++ or are m-files located in the directory scripts/deprecated. Check file etc/NEWS.VERSION-2.md for list of features that have been deprecated.