Revision [17260]

This is an old revision of DevMakingReleases made by DkLwikki on 2014-09-10 08:29:33.

 

Notes on making FB releases


because it depends on the configuration of the MinGW-w64 runtime.

Packaging and Manifests
The FB makefile offers the gitdist command for packaging the source code via git archive, and the bindist command for packaging previously built binaries. Example workflow:

# Go to fbc Git clone
cd fbc

# Compile FB
make

# Package the source code
make gitdist

# Package the binaries, regenerate the manifest
make bindist

# Check the manifest
git diff


gitdist creates source tarballs in multiple formats. It assumes that all changes to the fbc source code used for building the release have been committed to Git.

bindist creates the needed binary archive(s), potentially in multiple formats, with the proper package name and directory layout depending on the target platform and whether it's a normal or standalone build, and it (re)generates the corresponding manifest (list of all files included in the archive) in the contrib/manifest/ directory in the fbc source tree.

By checking the manifest differences via Git (git diff, git gui, etc.) you can check whether any files are missing in comparison to the previous release, or whether files were added that should not be included. Should there be any such issues, they may need to be fixed manually (possible the makefile's bindist implementation needs updating, or you simply need to copy in missing files), after which make bindist can be run again to recreate the package and update the manifest again.

bindist configuration options:

  • TARGET_OS/TARGET_ARCH makefile variables: You can set TARGET_OS and/or TARGET_ARCH on the make command line to override the makefile's default uname check. This is useful if you want to package for a different system than what the uname command returns. For example, packaging the FB-dos release from a MinGW/MSYS shell (with MSYS tools instead of DJGPP tools):

    • make bindist TARGET_OS=dos

  • FBPACKAGE makefile variable: Package/archive file name without path or extension. Defaults:

  • Linux/BSD normal, Windows/DOS standalone: FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-target
  • Linux/BSD standalone: FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-target-standalone
  • Windows/DOS normal (MinGW/DJGPP-style packages): fbc-x.xx.x-target

  • FBMANIFEST makefile variable: Manifest file name without path or extension. The defaults are the same as for FBPACKAGE, except without the -x.xx.x version number part.


  • FBVERSION makefile variable: Is already set in the makefile, but you can override it if you want to (e.g. when making testing releases instead of "official" releases). For example: FBVERSION=0.90.1 or FBVERSION=0.90.1rc1

Toolchain/build environment
When making an FB release, the GCC toolchain used to build FB has a huge impact, because FB itself will basically become a modified/extended version of that toolchain. The FB-dos and FB-win32 releases include libraries from the used DJGPP/MinGW toolchains, and they will be used for any FB programs made with those FB builds. Even the FB-linux release will depend on the gcc/glibc version it was built with, because of the precompiled rtlib/gfxlib2 libraries, and because of fbc which will have been linked against shared libraries that may not exist on other systems.

Additionally, different GCC toolchains and runtime libraries (e.g. MinGW.org vs. MinGW-w64, or DJGPP 2.03 vs. 2.04 vs. CVS) can be more or less different in terms of ABI compatibility or runtime behaviour. As such any FB program can behave differently depending on the GCC toolchain, including fbc itself.

More information:
DevBuildKnownProblems Known problems when compiling FB
DevGccToolchainChoice GCC toolchain choice

FB manual/documentation

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