Documentation/4.8/Developers/Versioning

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Versioning

Project fork

While Slicer specific patches related to dependent project (i.e. VTK) are integrated upstream, it is not uncommon to build Slicer against a Slicer specific fork of the project.

For example: https://github.com/Slicer/VTK

Patches for tagged release

For each version of the project requiring some specific patches, a branch following that convention will be created: slicer-vX.Y.Z-YEAR-MONTH-DAY where

• X.Y.Z corresponds to the version of the fork project
• YEAR-MONTH-DAY corresponds to the date of the last official commit of the fork project.

For example, in case of the Slicer/VTK fork, the branch slicer-v6.2.0-2015-03-02 has been created.

Patches for development branch

In this case, since there is no tag associated with the branch, the Slicer specific patch should be added to a branch named using the date of the commit parent of the Slicer branch: slicer-vX.Y-YEAR-MONTH-DAY-REV where

• X.Y corresponds to the fork release
• REV corresponds to either the first 7 chars of git hash or SVN revision (for example r1234)
• YEAR-MONTH-DAY corresponds to the date of the last official commit of the fork project

For example: slicer-v6.2.0-2015-02-24-70bad0e

Adding patches to the fork

When adding new patches to the fork, prefer direct commits or cherry-picked commits over merge commits. Avoiding merge commits makes it easier to rebase the fork against a new upstream revision.

Commit message

The following command should be used to list changes:

git shortlog sha_before..sha_after --no-merges

where sha_before and sha_after are the first seven charachers of the SHA.

Here is an example of commit updating External_VTKv6.cmake in Slicer:

ENH: Update VTK to handle default values for array parameters in python
    
Without this commit, one must specify parameters like (,int array[3]=0) when
the method is called from python.

$ git shortlog 1c30cb0..4b9957b --no-merges
David Gobbi (2):
      Fix wrapping pointer parameters with default value 0.
      Handle default values for array parameters in python.

Source: r25160

Caveats

• For the commit title, prefer something like ENH: Update VTK to ... instead of ENH: Update VTK git tag to ...

• If there is only commit in the update, it is reasonable to copy the message. For example, see r24693.

• If the copied message reference the sha1 of its project (e.g VTK), change it to this form org/proj@sha. For example, see r24693.

• If there is a long list of changes return by git shortlog, make sure to copy the full list. Before the list, consider also adding a short summary of the "interesting" changes. For example, see r25068

Slicer Package naming scheme

Slicer-<MAJOR_VERSION>.<MINOR_VERSION>.<PATCH_VERSION>[-rc{1|2|3...}][-<TWEAK_VERSION>][-<DATE>][-svn<REV>][-dirty]-<ARCH>-<PLATFORM>

There are 2 types of builds, releases and developments:

Release

Special builds made on a given revision (e.g. r19033: "ENH: Slicer 4.0.1")

Don't contain date or revision number.

The optional suffix -rc{1|2|3|...} identifies the release candidates leading to a final release.

Eventually, a tweak number can be added (e.g. 4.0.1-1)

Development

Nightly or experimental builds

Contains suffixes after the major.minor.patch version

The suffix svn<REV> allows to identify the revision associated with the current package.

The -dirty prefix indicates if the package has been generated from a locally modified source tree.

Example of linux 64bits packages

Proposal #1

Include revision number in package name

File name	date	build type	note
Slicer-4.0.0-linux-amd64	2011-11-24	release	release of Slicer 4.0.0
Slicer-4.0.0-2011-12-10-svn100-linux-amd64	2011-11-25	development	nightly build after 4.0.0
Slicer-4.0.1-rc1-linux-amd64	2012-01-04	release	release candidate 1 of Slicer 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.1-rc1-2012-01-05-svn150-linux-amd64	2012-01-05	development	nightly build after the release candidate
Slicer-4.0.1-rc2-linux-amd64	2012-01-11	release	release candidate 2 of Slicer 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.1-rc2-2012-01-12-svn200-linux-amd64	2012-01-12	development	nightly build after the release candidate
Slicer-4.0.1-linux-amd64	2012-01-14	release	release of Slicer 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.1-2012-01-20-svn236-linux-amd64	2012-01-20	development	nightly build after 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.1-1-linux-amd64	2012-01-28	release	tweak version 1 of Slicer 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.2-linux.amd64	2012-06-05	release	release of Slicer 4.0.2

Proposal #2

• Increment minor version after each release, remove the concept of release candidate and tweak version.

• With the transition to git workflow where branching is easier, after each release, the minor version in the trunk would be increased by one.

• Patch release would be done using the maintenance branch associated with any given release.

File name	date	build type	branch	note
Slicer-4.5.0-1-linux-amd64	2015-12-11	release	4.5	tweak version 1 of Slicer 4.5.0
Slicer-4.6.0-2016-01-30-svn24950-linux-amd64	2016-01-30	development	master	nightly build after 4.5.0
...	...	...	...	...
Slicer-4.6.0-2016-02-06-svn25174-linux-amd64	2016-02-06	development	master	nightly build after 4.5.0
Slicer-4.5.1-2016-02-06-svn25175-linux-amd64	2016-02-06	development	4.5	manual build after 4.5.0-1
Slicer-4.5.1-linux-amd64	2015-02-07	release	4.5	patch version 1 of Slicer 4.5.0
...	...	...	...	...
Slicer-4.6.0-2016-03-05-svn25174-linux-amd64	2016-02-05	development	master	nightly build after 4.5.0
Slicer-4.6.0-linux-amd64	2016-03-06	release	master	release of 4.6.0 : next commit on master would increment minor version to start new dev cycle creation of maintenance branch 4.6
...	...	...	...	...
Slicer-4.6.0-2016-03-07-svn25180-linux-amd64	2016-03-07	development	master	nightly build after 4.6.0

Proposal #3

• Package name remains unchanged: Slicer-X.Y.Z[-YYYY-MM-DD]-<arch>.<ext>

• Development build will end with an "odd" number
  • For example: 4.7, 4.9, 5.1, 5.3
  • Package name include the date: Slicer-X.Y.Z[-YYYY-MM-DD].<ext>

• Stable release will end with an "even" number
  • For example: 4.8, 5.0, 5.2
  • Package name do not include the date: Slicer-X.Y.Z.<ext>

• Install folder:
  • windows: Slicer X.Y.Z-YYYY-MM-DD (remains the same)
  • macOS: Slicer.app -> Slicer-X.Y.Z-YYYY-MM-DD.app (add revision and date)
  • Linux: Slicer-X.Y.Z[-YYYY-MM-DD]-<arch> (remains the same)

Why ?

• Slicer is "released" daily (aka nightly build) and mixing these daily releases with stable releases under the same major.minor revision would be confusing for the users. We cannot expect users to learn different naming patterns to determine what kind of release (development/stable) they are installing and learning a complex logic of determining which version is more recent (e.g., which one is more recent 4.7.1-1 or 4.7.0-2017-08-29).
• With this new scheme in place, we can unambiguously specify both stable/development branch and a specific version. This allows using simple major.minor tags in Mantis, documentation, forums, etc.
• It will be possible to distinguish between the pre- and the post- release. When we mention 4.8, it clearly relates to a version that contain all changes of 4.7.
• Semantic versioning not applicable to a complex application, maintaining backward compatibility is done as a best effort and often "minor" breaking changes are included after communicating with users or updating the user code.

Extension package - Naming scheme

• Create Extensions-XYZ-Nightly and Extensions-XYZ-Continuous tracks on CDash