Release process

This page is meant as a rough guide for doing a collectd release.

1. Start writing a ChangeLog. This is easiest when writing the changelog in the wiki, e.g. at Version-5.4.
   • I usually get a list of all commits (git log collectd-5.4.1..collectd-5.4), go through this commit-by-commit.
   • Write from a user's point of view. For example: "Support for recent versions of gcrypt has been added." rather than "don't enable gcrypt thread callbacks when gcrypt recent enough".
   • Write in the past tense, use passive form. For example: "Support for X has been added.", "The Y option has been added."
2. Convert the ChangeLog entry to plain-text and add it to the top of ChangeLog. See #wiki2changelog.pl below.
3. Increase the version number in version-gen.sh.
4. Commit and call ./build.sh so autoconf picks up the new version number.
5. Tag the commit with git tag --sign collectd-X.Y.Z or git tag --sign collectd-X.Y.Z-rc0
6. Build tarballs with make distcheck
7. Upload tarballs; make sure files are world-readable.
8. Update SHA256SUM and friends.
9. Change links on the download page and in the left-hand menu.
10. Convert the ChangeLog entry to HTML and update the News page. See #wiki2html.pl below.
11. Update the releases page on github.
12. Update the topic in the IRC channel.
13. Make noise (Twitter, Google+, …)

wiki2changelog.pl

 #!/usr/bin/perl

 use strict;
 use warnings;

 while (<>)
 {
   s#'''##g;
   s#''##g;

   s#<code>([^<]+)</code>#"$1"#g;
   s#\[\[[^\|\]]+\|([^\]]+)\]\]#$1#g;
   s#{{Plugin\|([^}]+)}}#plugin($1)#ge;
   s/{{Issue\|([^}]+)}}/#$1/g;

   print "\t$_";
 }

 sub plugin
 {
   $_ = lc ($_[0]);
   s/\s/_/g;

   return "$_ plugin";
 }

wiki2html.pl

  #!/usr/bin/perl

  use strict;
  use warnings;

  while (<>)
  {
    chomp;

    s#^\* ##;
    s#'''([^']+)'''#<strong>$1</strong>#g;
    s#''([^']+)''#''$1''#g;

    s#\[\[([^\|\]]+)\|([^\]]+)\]\]#<a href="/wiki/index.php/$1">$2</a>#g;
    s#{{Plugin\|([^}]+)}}#<a href="/wiki/index.php/Plugin:$1">$1 plugin</a>#g;
    s#{{Issue\|([^}]+)}}#<a href="https://github.com/collectd/collectd/issues/$1">\#$1</a>#g;

    print "$_<br />\n";
  }