Documentation/Nightly/Developers/Versioning

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Versioning

Project fork

See Documentation/Nightly/Developers/ProjectForks

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