qpdf/README-maintainer.md

Release Reminders

• For debugging:

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

• Test for binary compatibility. The easiest way to do this is to check out the last release, run the test suite, check out the new release, run make build_libqpdf, check out the old release, and run make check NO_REBUILD=1.
• When making a release, always remember to run large file tests and image comparison tests (--enable-test-compare-images --with-large-file-test-path=/path). For Windows, use a Windows style path, not an MSYS path for large files. For a major release, consider running a spelling checker over the source code to catch errors in variable names, strings, and comments. Use ispell -p ispell-words.
• Run tests with sanitize address enabled:

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

  The test suite should run clean with this. This seems to be more reliable than valgrind.
• Test with clang.
• Check all open issues in the sourceforge trackers and on github.
• 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.
• 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.
• Increment shared library version information as needed (LT_* in configure.ac)
• Update release notes in manual. Look at diffs and ChangeLog.
• Add a release entry to ChangeLog.
• Make sure version numbers are consistent in the following locations:
  • configure.ac
  • libqpdf/QPDF.cc
  • manual/qpdf-manual.xml make_dist verifies this consistency.
• 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.
• Check TODO file to make sure all planned items for the release are done or retargeted.
• 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: 2017.
• To construct a source distribution from a pristine checkout, make_dist does the following:

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

• To create a source release, do an export from the version control system to a directory called qpdf-version. For example, from this directory:

  rm -rf /tmp/qpdf-x.y.z
  git archive --prefix=qpdf-x.y.z/ HEAD . | (cd /tmp; tar xf -)
  

  From the parent of that directory, run make_dist with the directory as an argument. Remember to have fop in your path. For internally testing releases, you can run make_dist with the --no-tests option.
• 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
  

• To create Windows binary releases, extract the qpdf source distribution in Windows (MSYS2 + MSVC). From the extracted directory, extract the binary distribution of the external libraries. Run ./make_windows_releases from there.
• Before releasing, rebuild and test debian package.
• Remember to copy README-what-to-download.md separately onto the download area.
• Remember to update the web page including putting new documentation in the files subdirectory of the website on sourceforge.net.
• Create a tag in the version control system, and make backups of the actual releases. With git, use git tag -s to create a signed tag:

  git tag -s release-qpdf-$version HEAD -m"qpdf $version"
  

• When releasing on sourceforge, external-libs distributions go in external-libs/yyyymmdd, and qpdf distributions go in qpdf/vvv. Make the source package the default for all but Windows, and make the 32-bit mingw build the default for Windows.

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.

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 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, make distclean, or make autofiles.zip 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 Linux, run ./autogen.sh and make autofiles.zip CLEAN=1.

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

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.