src/swipl-devel/doc/Release.md

In rswipl: Embed 'SWI'-'Prolog'

Creating a SWI-Prolog release

This document summarises the steps and prerequisites to build a SWI-Prolog release. Most of the scripts are in the scripts directory. Many of these scripts contain paths and addresses that relate to how things are setup on my development machines.

Machines

Releases are currently build using a Linux machine running Ubuntu 20.04 and a Mac running MacOS 10.15. For a full release you need a Linux machine and a Mac. With minor adjustments, any Linux distro will do, but the hardware must be amd64 to be able to run Wine for building the Windows releases.

Preparing the build machines

This only needs to be done once. One must regularly check Windows and MacOS dependencies for new releases, in particular for OpenSSL.

Linux machine

• Install the dependencies, including those for building the PDF documentation

Preparing building Windows releases

• Clone https://github.com/SWI-Prolog/docker-swipl-build-mingw
• Build the docker image using

  make image
  

Mac

• Install Apple Xcode
• Install Macports
  • Install these packages
  • autoconf
  • automake
  • gnutar
  • gsed
  • gcc13 (when building for x86_64)
  • cmake
  • openjdk17
  • Qt 6.6.1
• Build the SWI-Prolog dependencies according to scripts/macos-deps.sh

MacOS universal binaries

We assume the build is done on an M1 system.

• Build the dependencies on both x86_64 and arm64.
• Copy the x86_64 deps tree to ~/deps.x86_64.

• Go to deps and run

  ~/src/swipl-devel/scripts/macos-import-arch.sh ../deps.x86_64

• Verify you now have fat binaries using

  lipo -info

• Macports openjdk17 is single-archirecture. Install both architectures and use lipo to create a fat version of libjvm.dylib for the M1 OpenJDK installation:

  lipo -create libjvm.dylib.arm64 libjvm.dylib.x86_64 -output libjvm.dylib
  

• From there, the recipe in scripts/make-distribution does the job.

Note that ideally, one could build the dependencies as universal binaries, but OpenSSL does not build that way and pcre2 does not include JIT support for x86_64 this way. In general, libraries that include assembly or use CPU detection may not work at all or be slower when built as a universal binary.

Accounts, etc

• Setup PGP signatures for git, so you can sign the release
• Setup upload channels for rsync to the website.
• Setup authentication for uploading to the Ubuntu PPA

Preparing a release (on Linux, but could be adopted for Mac)

• Edit VERSION to specify the new release

• Run this command and tag+sign the release

  ./scripts/newversion

Build the releases

• Create the releases. Below is if all is setup correctly. The script make-distribution defines a lot of useful functions. First time it may be wise to run the steps one-by-one.

  . scripts/make-distribution build

• For the Mac

  • Pull the repo from the Linux machine, including tags and verify the directory is clean and in sync:

  git pull linux master git pull --tags linux master git describe

  • Build as for Linux:

  . scripts/make-distribution build

• If there were no issues with any of the builds we can go to the next step. If there are issues, fix them and repeat all steps, starting with ./scripts/newversion

Uploading the releases

• Run the upload function as defined by make-distribution. This assumes the upload rsync channels are setup properly.

• Upload the git repos:

  git push git push --tags git submodule foreach git push --tags

Updating the website

• Login to the webserver backends. The basic sequence is below. Typically this also installs OS patches and reboot the server after the software upgrade instead of just the web server.

  cd src/swipl-devel git pull git describe # Verify tag cmake . ninja ctest ninja install sudo systemctl restart plweb

Updating the Linux snaps

• See snap/local/publish.md

Updating Macports

• Assumes a clone of https://github.com/macports/macports-ports under ~/src with a remote fork pointing at your fork of this repo at github. I have this both on the Linux machine and Mac.

Testing the Macports version

There is typically not that much need to verify the whole thing also builds under Macports if you already built and tested the current version on the Mac. Still, if there are problems proceed as follows:

• First time preparation
  • Setup a local repository according to https://guide.macports.org/chunked/development.local-repositories.html
  • Create directories lang/swi-prolog and lang/swi-prolog-devel under ~/ports and from these dirs create a symlink to the Portfile files in the ~/src/macports-ports repo.
  • Run portindex in ~/ports

Now, to test your version run these commands. The first creates a source tar archive and the second publishes this in the local Macports distfiles store and updates the version and hashes of the Portfile.

./scripts/make-src-tape --tag=HEAD
./scripts/update-macports

Now you can run

port lint swi-prolog-devel
sudo port test swi-prolog-devel

Creating a PR

Go back to the Linux machine and run

./scripts/update-macports

This creates a branch with the version (say 8.3.1) in ~/src/macports-ports with the correct version and hashes. This is why you need to run this on the Linux machine as you have uploaded the tar archive from this machine. The one on the Mac isn't the same as time stamps vary. Now

• cd ~/src/macports-ports

• Verify that lang/swi-prolog/devel/Portfile looks good using

  git show HEAD
  

• Push the branch to our clone

  git push fork $(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)

• Open the link of the PR and complete it.

Updating the official Docker image

Preparation

• Fork https://github.com/SWI-Prolog/docker-swipl
• Fork https://github.com/docker-library/official-images

Update docker-swipl

• cp -r
• Edit /bookworm/Dockerfile, e.g.
  • SWIPL_VER=8.2.3; \
  • SWIPL_CHECKSUM=9403972f9d87f1f4971fbd4a5644b4976b1b18fc174be84506c6b713bd1f9c93; \
• Test using
  • docker pull debian:bookworm-slim
  • `docker build . 2>&1 | tee build.log
• On success, add the Dockerfile and create a PR

Update official-images

• Prepare using

  git checkout master
  git pull
  git checkout -b swipl-<version>
  

• Edit library/swipl, update

  • GitCommit
  • Tags
  • Directory

• Commit with comment "Updated swipl (devel/stable) to "

• Push using

  git push fork $(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)

• Create a PR.

Creating the Announce post

Create the basic ChangeLog, replacing the two releases (previous and new) and edit the result, highlighting the important aspects:

mkdir -p ReleaseNotes
./scripts/mkchangelog --nodate 8.3.0 > ReleaseNotes/RELNOTES-8.3.1
edit ReleaseNotes/RELNOTES-8.3.1

Finally, copy/paste into a new release topic in Discourse.

rswipl documentation built on April 3, 2025, 5:53 p.m.