7.1 Release Checklist

Timeline (tentative)

• 2021-11-yy 🚀 Release Kick-off ⚽ (default branch not yet merged to stable!)
• 2022-xx-yy 🛠️ First Release candidate 7.0.90 on https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/octave/
• ...
• 2022-xx-yy 🏁 Final Release 🎉 7.1.0 on https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/

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

🚀 Kick-off ⚽

📢 Call for bug reports

Completion Date:

• Put out a general call for reports on Octave Discourse for all outstanding unreported known bugs.

📢 Call for translations

Completion Date:

• Call for translations for GUI strings on Octave Discourse.
• Update language translation files (*.ts).
• Create issue report on Savannah as a centralized location for uploading files.
• Collect and push all translated files.

⚙️ Update gnulib to latest version

Completion Date:

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

⚖️ GPL License activities

Completion Date:

• Update copyright statements for all source controlled files.
• Update dates in any other locations (launch message, citation, MXE files, etc.).
• 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.
• Spell check documentation.
• Verify no functions missing from manual.
• Verify deprecated functions removed from "see also" links.
• Verify all formats (Info, HTML, PDF) build correctly.
• Review NEWS for any features which should be announced.
• Review __unimplemented__.m for the latest changes to Octave Forge packages and new Matlab functions.
• Update major version number in "@subtitle Edition XXX" in octave.texi.
• Update installer-files/README.html in MXE Octave with version highlights.

🔃 Repeat until all bugs are resolved

Completion Date first iteration:

Current state at Savannah

Visit https://octave.space/savannah to get an overview about open bugs for the next stable release.

✅ make check

• Verify make check is passing on all buildbot combinations of OS and compilers.
• Compiling with -fsanitize=undefined, --enable-address-sanitizer-flags to check for memory leaks. Use other tools cppcheck, etc.
  • Update PVS static analyzer results PVS static analyzer - 5.0 Release.
• Start discussion on maintainers@octave.org about which failing tests that must be fixed and which can be declared WON'T FIX.

🛠️ Create new release candidate

• Ensure correct version information.
• Create hg tag in repository with release candidate version number.
• Verify make distcheck passes.
• Verify make dist works.
• Create Windows Installer.
• Upload release candidates.
• Add release candidate version to Savannah bug tracker.
• Announce release candidate to Octave Discourse.

🏁 Final Release 🎉

📃 Update version information

Completion Date:

• Ensure correct version information.
• Create hg tag in repository with release version number.
• Update NEWS (final release date).
• Update CITATION (version, year, URL).
• Update org.octave.Octave.appdata.xml (version number and release date).
• Update Savannah bug tracker version info.
• Update Savannah bug tracker: OPEN bugs marked as WON'T FIX should be marked as CONFIRMED (or more appropriate) for the final release.
• Remove release candidate versions from Savannah.

📢 Announce final release

Completion Date:

• Octave mailing-lists
• Octave web site (https://hg.octave.org/web-octave)
  • Steps documented in this changeset.
  • Upload documentation (manual HTML + PDF octave.org/doc and version in octave.org/.htaccess, Doxygen octave.org/doxygen)
• This wiki
  • Template:Release = 9.2.0
  • Template:Release Date = June 1, 2024
  • Template:Release Year = 2024

☑️ Post-Release

Completion Date:

• Merge default onto stable to become the current stable release.
• Ensure correct version information.
• Remove all deprecated functions (either OCTAVE_DEPRECATED in C++ or scripts/deprecated for m-files) scheduled for deletion in "default" branch.
• Move NEWS file to backup in etc/NEWS.X.
• Create new NEWS file.

ℹ️ Versioning hints

Read etc/HACKING.md carefully!!

• Update configure.ac:
  • AC_INIT
  • OCTAVE_API_VERSION
  • OCTAVE_MAJOR/MINOR/PATCH_VERSION
  • OCTAVE_RELEASE_DATE
• Update libtool versioning:
  • liboctave/module.mk %canon_reldir%_%canon_reldir%_current
  • libinterp/module.mk %canon_reldir%_liboctinterp_current
  • libgui/module.mk %canon_reldir%_liboctgui_current