qpdf/README-maintainer

ROUTINE DEVELOPMENT

Default:

./configure --enable-werror --disable-shared

Debugging:

./configure CFLAGS="-g" CXXFLAGS="-g" --enable-werror --disable-shared

Memory checks:

./configure CFLAGS="-fsanitize=address -g" \
   CXXFLAGS="-fsanitize=address -g" \
   LDFLAGS="-fsanitize=address" \
   --enable-werror --disable-shared


CODING RULES

* Avoid atoi. Use QUtil::string_to_int instead. It does
  overflow/underflow checking.

* Remember to avoid using `operator[]` with `std::string` or
  `std::vector`. Instead, use `at()`. See README-hardening.md for
  details.


RELEASE PREPARATION

* Each year, update copyright notices. Just do a case-insensitive
  search for copyright. Don't forget copyright in manual. Also update
  debian copyright in debian package. Last updated: 2018.

* Check all open issues in the sourceforge trackers and on github.

* Check `TODO` file to make sure all planned items for the release are
  done or retargeted.

* Run a spelling checker over the source code to catch errors in
  variable names, strings, and comments.

  ispell -p ispell-words **/*.hh **/*.cc manual/* ChangeLog

* If needed, run large file and image comparison tests. Configure
  options:

--enable-test-compare-images --with-large-file-test-path=/path

  For Windows, use a Windows style path, not an MSYS path for large files.

* Test with clang. Pass `CC=clang CXX=clang++` to `./configure`. Test
  with newer version of gcc if available.

* Test build on a mac.

* Test with address sanitizer as described above.

* A small handful of additional files have been taken from autotools
  programs. These should probably be updated from time to time.

  * `config.guess`, `config.sub`, `ltmain.sh`, and the `m4` directory:
    these were created by running `libtoolize -c`. To update, run
    `libtoolize -f -c` or remove the files and rerun `libtoolize`.

  * Other files copied as indicated:
    ```
    cp /usr/share/automake-1.11/install-sh .
    cp /usr/share/automake-1.11/mkinstalldirs .
    ```

  The entire contents of the `m4` directory came from `libtool.m4`. If
  we had some additional local parts, we could also add those to the
  `m4` directory. In order for this to work, it is necessary to run
  `aclocal -I m4` before running `autoheader` and `autoconf`. The
  `autogen.sh` script handles this.

* If any interfaces were added or changed, check C API to see whether
  changes are appropriate there as well. If necessary, review the
  casting policy in the manual, and ensure that integer types are
  properly handled.

* Increment shared library version information as needed (`LT_*` in
  `configure.ac`)

* Test for binary compatibility:
  * Check out the last release
  * ./autogen.sh && ./configure --enable-werror && make -j$(nproc)
  * Check out the current version
  * ./autogen.sh && ./configure --enable-werror && make -j$(nproc) build_libqpdf
  * Checkout the last release
  * make -k check NO_REBUILD=1

* Update release notes in manual. Look at diffs and ChangeLog. Update
  release date in `manual/qpdf-manual.xml`. Remember to ensure that
  the entities at the top of the document are consistent with the
  release notes for both version and release date.

* Make sure version numbers are consistent in the following locations:
  * configure.ac
  * libqpdf/QPDF.cc
  * manual/qpdf-manual.xml
  `make_dist` verifies this consistency.

* Add a release entry to ChangeLog.


CREATING A RELEASE

* Be sure that the local git clone's HEAD is a commit that has
  upstream/master as an ancestor and that can be pushed to my fork. We
  will be generating releases and tagging this commit, which will be
  pushed to master as part of the release process.

* Create source release:

version=x.y.z
./make_dist $version
gpg --detach-sign --armor /tmp/qpdf-$version.tar.gz

  Move /tmp/qpdf-$version.tar.gz and /tmp/qpdf-$version.tar.gz.asc to
  the release archive area.

  For iterating on the release during testing, pass `--no-tests` to
  make_dist to skip the test suite.

* Generate an AppImage using the docker image in appimage. Arguments
  to the docker container are arguments to git clone. The build should
  be made off the exact commit that will be officially tagged as the
  release but built prior to tagging the release. We used to create
  signed AppImages, but this is problematic for various reasons (older
  gpg on the build image, problems embedding the key in the AppImage
  because of ELF issues), and we are signing the AppImages externally,
  so it doesn't really matter.

  Example:

cd appimage
docker build -t qpdfbuild .
\rm -rf /tmp/build
mkdir -p /tmp/build
docker run --privileged -ti --rm -v /tmp/build:/tmp/build qpdfbuild https://github.com/jberkenbilt/qpdf -b work

  The AppImage in /tmp/build/qpdf/appimage/build should be called
  qpdf-$version-x86_64.AppImage. Copy qpdf*AppImage* (AppImage and
  zsync) files to the release archive area.

* Create Windows binary releases. In Windows:
  * Extract the source distribution
  * From there, unzip the binary distribution of the external libraries
  * Open windows for 32-bit and 64-bit compilation environments that
    support msvc and mingw
  * Disable antivirus software. For bitdefender, open, select the "B"
    shield, and go to "View Features". Disable all features. Disable
    antivirus until next restart.
  * In each window simultaneously, run ./make_windows_releases
    * NOTE: For now, test failures are not fatal because of unknown
      fragility in the Windows test environment. If any tests fail,
      test logs are copied to qtest-*. Check test logs carefully
      before accepting the releases.
  * Copy the four resulting zip files into the release archive area
  * Re-enable anti-virus software

* Build and test the debian package

* Sign the releases. The release archive area should contain the
  Windows binaries, the AppImage, the source tarball, and the source
  tarball signature.

\rm -f *.{md5,sha1,sha512}
files=(*)
for i in md5 sha1 sha512; do
  ${i}sum $files >| qpdf-$version.$i
  gpg --clearsign --armor qpdf-$version.$i
  mv qpdf-$version.$i.asc qpdf-$version.$i
done
chmod 444 *
chmod 555 *.AppImage

* When creating releases on github and sourceforge, remember to copy
  `README-what-to-download.md` separately onto the download area if
  needed.

* Push the master branch to github. Create and push a signed tag. This
  should be run with HEAD pointing to the tip of master.

git rev-parse master @
git push upstream master
git tag -s release-qpdf-$version HEAD -m"qpdf $version"
git push upstream release-qpdf-$version

* Create a github release after pushing the tag. `gcurl` is an alias
  that includes the auth token.

# Create release
url=$(gcurl -s -XPOST https://api.github.com/repos/qpdf/qpdf/releases -d'{"tag_name": "release-qpdf-'$version'", "name": "qpdf '$version'", "draft": true}' | jq -r '.url')

# Get upload url
upload_url=$(gcurl -s $url | jq -r '.upload_url' | sed -E -e 's/\{.*\}//')
echo $upload_url

# Upload all the files. You can add a label attribute too, which
# overrides the name.
for i in *; do
  mime=$(file -b --mime-type $i)
  gcurl -H "Content-Type: $mime" --data-binary @$i "$upload_url?name=$i"
done

If needed, go onto github and make any manual updates such as
indicating a pre-release, adding release notes, etc.

# Publish release
gcurl -XPOST $url -d'{"draft": false}'

* Upload files to sourceforge. Make the source package the default for
  all but Windows, and make the 32-bit mingw build the default for
  Windows. Publish a news item manually on sourceforge.

* Update the web page to indicate the new version and to put the new
  documentation in the `files` subdirectory of the website on
  sourceforge.net.

* Email the qpdf-announce list.


OTHER NOTES

To construct a source distribution from a pristine checkout,
`make_dist` does the following:

./configure --enable-doc-maintenance --enable-werror
make build_manual
make distclean

To create a source release of external libs, do an export from the
version control system into a directory called `qpdf-external-libs`
and just make a zip file of the result called
`qpdf-external-libs-src.zip`. See the README.txt file there for
information on creating binary external libs releases. Run this from
the external-libs repository:

git archive --prefix=external-libs/ HEAD . | (cd /tmp; tar xf -)
cd /tmp
zip -r qpdf-external-libs-src.zip external-libs

When releasing on sourceforge, `external-libs` distributions go in
`external-libs/yyyymmdd`, and qpdf distributions go in `qpdf/vvv`.

For local iteration on the AppImage generation, follow the release
procedures for building the AppImage, but instead of passing git clone
options to the docker command, copy qpdf to /tmp/build. You can also
pass -e SKIP_TESTS=1 to docker to skip the test suite, useful for
rapid iteration. Set up /tmp/build as in the release process.

cp -a $PWD /tmp/build
docker run --privileged -ti --rm -e SKIP_TESTS=1 -v /tmp/build:/tmp/build qpdfbuild


GENERAL BUILD STUFF

QPDF uses autoconf and libtool but does not use automake. The only
files distributed with the qpdf source distribution that are not
controlled are `configure`, `libqpdf/qpdf/qpdf-config.h.in`,
`aclocal.m4`, and some documentation. See above for the steps required
to prepare a source distribution.

If building or editing documentation, configure with
`--enable-doc-maintenance`. This will ensure that all tools or files
required to validate and build documentation are available.

If you want to run `make maintainer-clean` or `make distclean` and you
haven't run `./configure`, you can pass `CLEAN=1` to make on the
command line to prevent it from complaining about configure not having
been run.

If you want to run checks without rerunning the build, pass
`NO_REBUILD=1` to make. This can be useful for special testing
scenarios such as validation of memory fixes or binary compatibility.


LOCAL WINDOWS TESTING PROCEDURE

This is what I do for routine testing on Windows.

From Windows, git clone from my Linux clone, and unzip
`external-libs`.

Look at `make_windows_releases`. Set up path the same way and run
whichever `./config-*` is appropriate for whichever compiler I need to
test with. Start one of the Visual Studio native compiler shells, and
from there, run one of the msys shells. The Visual Studio step is not
necessary if just building with mingw.