How to prepare a Ghostscript release

Introduction
Servers

Development sources and bug reports
Distribution

Making distributions

Preparing the source code
Testing
Testing on Windows
Finishing up
Beta distributions
Public releases

After releasing
GNU Ghostscript releases

GNU code
After releasing (GNU)

Fonts

For other information, see the Ghostscript overview and the instructions on how to build Ghostscript.

Introduction

This document describes the process that artofcode LLC, the copyright holder of Ghostscript, uses for making new Ghostscript releases. As time goes on, it will become a more suitable document for others wishing to prepare releases for distribution. Please note that although the Aladdin Free Public License allows anyone to prepare and distribute releases in accordance with its terms and conditions, this document is really meant only for developers working closely with artofcode LLC.

This document is primarily about AFPL Ghostscript releases. See the section on GNU releases below for information on making a GNU Ghostscript release from an existing AFPL Ghostscript release, and the section on fonts for information on releasing font packages.

File names below that don't include an explicit subdirectory name are in the src subdirectory.

If you do plan to make your own distribution, please be aware of some items you will want to change.

If you make any significant changes, please edit gscdef.c to change GS_PRODUCTFAMILY and GS_PRODUCT from "AFPL Ghostscript" to something else, in order to avoid confusion with artofcode's releases.
In the same file, you may also want to edit GS_COPYRIGHT to add your own copyright notice (although you must not remove any notice that is there).
You will almost certainly want to edit version.mak to change the revision date, GS_REVISIONDATE.
If you want to change the version number, you must change it in both version.mak (GS_VERSION_*) and lib/gs_init.ps (the integer on a line by itself near the beginning of the file).

Servers

The AFPL Ghostscript files are maintained on sites accessible to the public. One specific site hosts the active CVS repository for code, data, and documentation, and the bug report data base; several sites offer distributions with version numbers, intended for wider distribution.

Development sources and bug reports

The primary repository for AFPL Ghostscript is SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/). Please read the SourceForge AFPL Ghostscript home page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghostscript/) first. CVS access information is available at http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=1897.

Distribution

Stable, beta, and development releases are all available from

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1897

Stable releases are also distributed from

ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/

Development releases are also distributed from

ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/test/

Making distributions

This document only discusses source distributions. Source distributions currently can only be made on Linux systems (but it probably wouldn't take much work to support other Unix systems). Ghostscript as distributed also often includes executables or other packages for the Windows and MacOS environments, but artofcode does not produce these, and this document does not discuss them. For more information about Windows packages, please contact bug-gswin@ghostscript.com; for more information about MacOS packages, please contact mac-gs@ghostscript.com.

To make a source distribution, you will need the scripts and data files in the toolbin/ directory. You will probably find it convenient to include this directory in the PATH, but the instructions below don't assume that you have done this. To run the scripts, you will need reasonably current versions of Tcl, freely available from Scriptics (http://www.scriptics.com), and Python, freely available from http://www.python.org.

The instructions below also refer to some files that are deliberately omitted from the public distribution, because they are copyrighted by their authors and not freely redistributable. You will need to provide similar files for your environment.

data/*/*.ps (PostScript files) - needed for smoke testing
beta.msg - the announcement message for the release

Preparing the source code

Update references to the date:

In version.mak, the numeric date.
In doc/News.htm, in 3 places, skipping the Id: line.

Also in doc/News.htm, update the number of the highest closed bug and the list of open bugs.

Check in gscdef.c that the definition of GS_PRODUCT includes the appropriate one of "DEVELOPMENT RELEASE", "BETA RELEASE", or neither, and does not include "CVS PRE-RELEASE".

Check for patched configuration parameters, #define TESTs, version/date inconsistencies, and mismatches between the working directory and the CVS repository by running:

toolbin/pre

This program compares the result of various greps against a check file, writing the results of grep on one output file and the differences from the check file on another. See the source code of toolbin/pre for the default file names. The important one is the check file, toolbin/pre.chk. pre also verifies that the right information is in the following places:

version number in man/*.1, doc/*.htm, version.mak, doc/gs-vms.hlp, lib/gs_init.ps
revision date in man/*.1, doc/*.htm, version.mak, doc/gs-vms.hlp
copyright year (if necessary) in gscdef.c
third-party library version number in *.mak

If necessary, run

toolbin/pre update

to update the version and revision date in the doc files, and then run

toolbin/pre

again.

Check the consistency of the source code with the makefiles by running:

toolbin/gsmake.tcl check

Check that all source and .ps files are documented at least minimally by running:

toolbin/hrefcov.tcl +src
toolbin/hrefcov.tcl +lib

Testing

Edit the makefile (presumably unix-gcc.mak) to set

FEATURE_DEVS=$(FEATURE_DEVS_ALL)
COMPILE_INITS=1

This will help catch compilation problems.

Run

rm obj/*
make -j2 >& t.log

and look for warnings and errors in the log file.

Do a smoke test in a separate window, replacing /gs with the name of the development root directory if necessary:

unset GS_DEVICE GS_FONTPATH GS_LIB GS_OPTIONS
cd /tmp
/gs/bin/gs -I/gs/lib -I/gs/fonts -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH /gs/toolbin/smoke.ps | tee t
export TEMP=/gs/tmp
/gs/bin/gs -I/gs/lib -I/gs/fonts -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=bitcmyk\
  -sOutputFile=/dev/null -r600 -dBufferSpace=50000 /gs/toolbin/smoke.ps | tee t

This reads files named

/gs/data/ps/*.ps
/gs/data/psl2/*.ps
/gs/data/psl3/*.ps
/gs/data/test/*.ps

(Edit toolbin/smoke.ps ad lib to use other test sets.) Watch for crashes, unusual error messages, or anomalous displayed output. If there are any problems, start over from the beginning of the process.

Undo the FEATURE_DEVS and COMPILE_INITS edits.

Run

cvs commit

to ensure the repository is up to date.

Execute

toolbin/cvs2hist.py -v #.## > doc/Changes.htm

This consolidates all the CVS logs since the previous release in a readable format.

Run

tclsh
% source toolbin/makeset.tcl
% makehist

This updates doc/History#.htm from doc/News.htm and doc/Changes.htm. Then run

cvs commit

again to check in the Changes and history files.

Make the source archives with

tclsh
% source toolbin/makeset.tcl
% maketars

This creates the files

ghostscript-#.##.tar.gz (main archive)
ghostscript-#.##.tar.bz2 (main archive)
ghostscript-#.##gnu.tar.gz (GPL'ed files)

Testing on Windows

For Windows testing, you will need, in addition to the files listed under "Preparing the source" above:

toolbin/makewin (link to makeset.tcl)

The following procedures rely on a large number of MS-DOS batch scripts that are not discussed here: they are unlikely to be generally useful.

Mount the Windows partition on /c, and create the /c/work directory if needed.

Make the zip archive of all files needed for a Windows build, and copy it to the Windows partition:

toolbin/makewin
cp gs###.zip /c/work

Boot into Windows. Unpack the archive:

cd \work
unzip -oq gs###.zip
gs###

The gs###.bat script creates some necessary directories, sets up PATH and GS_LIB for testing, and makes the gs#.## directory current.

Build with the Borland compiler:

config bcwin32
copy /y /b ..\gs\makefile
erase obj\*.*
make > bc.log

Smoke test the executables (both gswin32 and gswin32c), as described above for source distributions. Then build with the Microsoft compiler:

config msvc32
copy /y /b ..\gs\makefile
erase obj\*.*
nmake > msvc.log

Smoke test these executables too.

Building with the Watcom compiler doesn't work, because the wmake or wmakel program runs out of memory. However, if it did work, this is how to do it:

config watcw32
copy /y /b ..\gs\makefile
erase obj\*.*
wmake -u > watc.log

Boot back into Linux. If testing in Windows revealed problems, edit the source files as necessary, and go back to "Preparing the source code."

Finishing up

If you are maintaining local master copies, execute

toolbin/makemaster

This creates a master/### directory if necessary, and moves the archives to it.

Tag the source files with the release number by executing

cvs tag gs#_##

Upload ghostscript-#.##.tar.* to SourceForge (by anonymous FTP to download.sourceforge.net, directory /incoming), and then post it using the "File Release" facility in the AFPL Ghostscript project. If this is a test release, put it in the gs-test module, otherwise put it in the ghostscript module. If you are adding Windows executables to an existing source release, please use the same release date as the source release, not the current date.

If ansi2knr.c has changed, put it on ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/ansi2knr.c.

If doc/C-style.htm has changed, put it on ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/C-style.htm.

Beta distributions

Do the steps for distributions in general.

Upload ghostscript-#.##.tar.* to ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/test.

Construct the e-mail announcement by editing beta.msg. Mail using:

To: gs-test

Public releases

Update the title (current version #), first heading (previous version #), and "new features" and "known problems" lists in doc/Current.htm.

Do the steps for distributions in general.

Create a directory at ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/gs###/. In that directory, store the following files:

Standard distribution files:

ghostscript-#.##.tar.gz
ghostscript-#.##.tar.bz2

MS Windows source and executables:
```
gs###src.zip
gs###w32.exe
gs###w32.zip
```
Third-party libraries, as links (upload these if not installed), where $$$ et al. refer to the version number of the library, which should be the latest compatible release of the library and must be consistent with the values of JVERSION and PVERSION in the makefiles:
```
jpegsrc.v$$.tar.gz -> ../../3rdparty/jpegsrc.v$$.tar.gz
libpng-$.$.$.tar.gz -> ../../3rdparty/libpng-$.$.$.tar.gz
zlib-$.$.$.tar.gz -> ../../3rdparty/zlib-$.$.$.tar.gz
jpegsr$$.zip -> ../../3rdparty/jpegsr$$.zip
lpng$$$.zip -> ../../3rdparty/lpng$$$.zip
zlib$$$.zip -> ../../3rdparty/zlib$$$.zip
```
In any case, the names of the links in the distribution directory should reflect the original name of the upstream file.

Fonts, where $.$$ refers to the most recent version number of the fonts:

ghostscript-fonts-other-$.$.tar.gz -> ../fonts/ghostscript-fonts-other-$.$.tar.gz
ghostscript-fonts-std-$.$.tar.gz -> ../fonts/ghostscript-fonts-std-$.$.tar.gz

(Note that the link names are somewhat inconsistent: some of them retain the version number of the file being referenced, and some of them use the Ghostscript version number. This is a historical artifact that might be changed someday.)

E-mail the release announcement using:

To: gs-announce

Edit the Web pages in cvs and commit to reflect the new release. The Wisconsin server should update automatically.

After releasing

Update the version number by incrementing it:

In lib/gs_init.ps, at the very beginning of the file.
In version.mak, in 3 definitions.
In doc/News.htm, in 4 places.

In gscdef.c, edit the definition of GS_PRODUCT to include "CVS PRE-RELEASE".

Edit doc/News.htm to remove all the content.

GNU Ghostscript releases

artofcode LLC re-releases each tested AFPL Ghostscript version with the GPL, as GNU Ghostscript, when the next tested AFPL Ghostscript version comes out.

GNU code

To make a GNU Ghostscript release from AFPL Ghostscript release #.##, run

toolbin/makegnu #.##

This reads the files

/gs/master/#.##/ghostscript-#.##.tar.gz
/gs/master/#.##/ghostscript-#.##gnu.tar.gz

and creates the file

/tmp/gnu-gs-#.##.tar.gz

Note that the makegnu script uses a program called copyrite that rewrites the copyright notices. The copyrite program is intentionally not distributed with Ghostscript.

Upload the file /tmp/gnu-gs-#.##.tar.gz to ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/gnu/gs#.##/. Delete the file after uploading.

After releasing (GNU)

E-mail the full URL and the md5sum of the new archive(s) to ftp-upload@gnu.org.

Fonts

artofcode LLC distributes a package of the base 35 PostScript fonts, and a package of other miscellaneous fonts. As with the Ghostscript code, each package is released both with the AFPL and with the GPL; however, unlike the Ghostscript code, artofcode releases these versions simultaneously rather than with a one-version delay.

To make the font packages, run the command

toolbin/makefonts #.##

This creates the following files:

ghostscript-fonts-std-#.##.tar.gz
ghostscript-fonts-other-#.##.tar.gz
gnu-gs-fonts-std-#.##.tar.gz
gnu-gs-fonts-other-#.##.tar.gz

The first two of these use the AFPL, and should be uploaded to ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/fonts/. The other two use the GPL, and should be uploaded to ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/gnu/fonts/. For the GNU release, also see "After releasing (GNU)".

This file is part of AFPL Ghostscript. See the Aladdin Free Public License (the "License") for full details of the terms of using, copying, modifying, and redistributing AFPL Ghostscript.

Ghostscript version 7.03, 20 October 2001