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Developer's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for PostgreSQL
Last updated: Tue Dec 4 01:14:35 EST 2001
Last updated: Tue Dec 4 01:20:03 EST 2001
Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (pgman@candle.pha.pa.us)
......@@ -446,210 +446,221 @@ typedef struct nameData
15) How are RPM's packaged?
This was written by Lamar Owen:
2001-05-03
As to how the RPMs are built -- to answer that question sanely requires
me to know how much experience you have with the whole RPM paradigm.
'How is the RPM built?' is a multifaceted question. The obvious simple
answer is that I maintain:
1.) A set of patches to make certain portions of the source
tree 'behave' in the different environment of the RPMset;
2.) The initscript;
3.) Any other ancilliary scripts and files;
4.) A README.rpm-dist document that tries to adequately document
both the differences between the RPM build and the WHY of the
differences, as well as useful RPM environment operations
(like, using syslog, upgrading, getting postmaster to
start at OS boot, etc);
5.) The spec file that throws it all together. This is not a
trivial undertaking in a package of this size.
I then download and build on as many different canonical distributions
as I can -- currently I am able to build on Red Hat 6.2, 7.0, and 7.1 on
my personal hardware. Occasionally I receive opportunity from certain
commercial enterprises such as Great Bridge and PostgreSQL, Inc. to
build on other distributions.
I test the build by installing the resulting packages and running the
regression tests. Once the build passes these tests, I upload to the
postgresql.org ftp server and make a release announcement. I am also
responsible for maintaining the RPM download area on the ftp site.
You'll notice I said 'canonical' distributions above. That simply means
that the machine is as stock 'out of the box' as practical -- that is,
everything (except select few programs) on these boxen are installed by
RPM; only official Red Hat released RPMs are used (except in unusual
circumstances involving software that will not alter the build -- for
example, installing a newer non-RedHat version of the Dia diagramming
package is OK -- installing Python 2.1 on the box that has Python 1.5.2
installed is not, as that alters the PostgreSQL build). The RPM as
uploaded is built to as close to out-of-the-box pristine as is
possible. Only the standard released 'official to that release'
compiler is used -- and only the standard official kernel is used as
well.
For a time I built on Mandrake for RedHat consumption -- no more.
Nonstandard RPM building systems are worse than useless. Which is not
to say that Mandrake is useless! By no means is Mandrake useless --
unless you are building Red Hat RPMs -- and Red Hat is useless if you're
trying to build Mandrake or SuSE RPMs, for that matter. But I would be
foolish to use 'Lamar Owen's Super Special RPM Blend Distro 0.1.2' to
build for public consumption! :-)
I _do_ attempt to make the _source_ RPM compatible with as many
distributions as possible -- however, since I have limited resources (as
a volunteer RPM maintainer) I am limited as to the amount of testing
said build will get on other distributions, architectures, or systems.
And, while I understand people's desire to immediately upgrade to the
newest version, realize that I do this as a side interest -- I have a
regular, full-time job as a broadcast
engineer/webmaster/sysadmin/Technical Director which occasionally
prevents me from making timely RPM releases. This happened during the
early part of the 7.1 beta cycle -- but I believe I was pretty much on
the ball for the Release Candidates and the final release.
I am working towards a more open RPM distribution -- I would dearly love
to more fully document the process and put everything into CVS -- once I
figure out how I want to represent things such as the spec file in a CVS
form. It makes no sense to maintain a changelog, for instance, in the
spec file in CVS when CVS does a better job of changelogs -- I will need
to write a tool to generate a real spec file from a CVS spec-source file
that would add version numbers, changelog entries, etc to the result
before building the RPM. IOW, I need to rethink the process -- and then
go through the motions of putting my long RPM history into CVS one
version at a time so that version history information isn't lost.
As to why all these files aren't part of the source tree, well, unless
there was a large cry for it to happen, I don't believe it should.
PostgreSQL is very platform-agnostic -- and I like that. Including the
RPM stuff as part of the Official Tarball (TM) would, IMHO, slant that
agnostic stance in a negative way. But maybe I'm too sensitive to
that. I'm not opposed to doing that if that is the consensus of the
core group -- and that would be a sneaky way to get the stuff into CVS
:-). But if the core group isn't thrilled with the idea (and my
instinct says they're not likely to be), I am opposed to the idea -- not
to keep the stuff to myself, but to not hinder the platform-neutral
stance. IMHO, of course.
Of course, there are many projects that DO include all the files
necessary to build RPMs from their Official Tarball (TM).
2001-05-03
As to how the RPMs are built -- to answer that question sanely
requires me to know how much experience you have with the whole RPM
paradigm. 'How is the RPM built?' is a multifaceted question. The
obvious simple answer is that I maintain:
1.) A set of patches to make certain portions of the source tree
'behave' in the different environment of the RPMset;
2.) The initscript;
3.) Any other ancilliary scripts and files;
4.) A README.rpm-dist document that tries to adequately document both
the differences between the RPM build and the WHY of the differences,
as well as useful RPM environment operations (like, using syslog,
upgrading, getting postmaster to start at OS boot, etc);
5.) The spec file that throws it all together. This is not a trivial
undertaking in a package of this size.
I then download and build on as many different canonical distributions
as I can -- currently I am able to build on Red Hat 6.2, 7.0, and 7.1
on my personal hardware. Occasionally I receive opportunity from
certain commercial enterprises such as Great Bridge and PostgreSQL,
Inc. to build on other distributions.
I test the build by installing the resulting packages and running the
regression tests. Once the build passes these tests, I upload to the
postgresql.org ftp server and make a release announcement. I am also
responsible for maintaining the RPM download area on the ftp site.
You'll notice I said 'canonical' distributions above. That simply
means that the machine is as stock 'out of the box' as practical --
that is, everything (except select few programs) on these boxen are
installed by RPM; only official Red Hat released RPMs are used (except
in unusual circumstances involving software that will not alter the
build -- for example, installing a newer non-RedHat version of the Dia
diagramming package is OK -- installing Python 2.1 on the box that has
Python 1.5.2 installed is not, as that alters the PostgreSQL build).
The RPM as uploaded is built to as close to out-of-the-box pristine as
is possible. Only the standard released 'official to that release'
compiler is used -- and only the standard official kernel is used as
well.
For a time I built on Mandrake for RedHat consumption -- no more.
Nonstandard RPM building systems are worse than useless. Which is not
to say that Mandrake is useless! By no means is Mandrake useless --
unless you are building Red Hat RPMs -- and Red Hat is useless if
you're trying to build Mandrake or SuSE RPMs, for that matter. But I
would be foolish to use 'Lamar Owen's Super Special RPM Blend Distro
0.1.2' to build for public consumption! :-)
I _do_ attempt to make the _source_ RPM compatible with as many
distributions as possible -- however, since I have limited resources
(as a volunteer RPM maintainer) I am limited as to the amount of
testing said build will get on other distributions, architectures, or
systems.
And, while I understand people's desire to immediately upgrade to the
newest version, realize that I do this as a side interest -- I have a
regular, full-time job as a broadcast
engineer/webmaster/sysadmin/Technical Director which occasionally
prevents me from making timely RPM releases. This happened during the
early part of the 7.1 beta cycle -- but I believe I was pretty much on
the ball for the Release Candidates and the final release.
I am working towards a more open RPM distribution -- I would dearly
love to more fully document the process and put everything into CVS --
once I figure out how I want to represent things such as the spec file
in a CVS form. It makes no sense to maintain a changelog, for
instance, in the spec file in CVS when CVS does a better job of
changelogs -- I will need to write a tool to generate a real spec file
from a CVS spec-source file that would add version numbers, changelog
entries, etc to the result before building the RPM. IOW, I need to
rethink the process -- and then go through the motions of putting my
long RPM history into CVS one version at a time so that version
history information isn't lost.
As to why all these files aren't part of the source tree, well, unless
there was a large cry for it to happen, I don't believe it should.
PostgreSQL is very platform-agnostic -- and I like that. Including the
RPM stuff as part of the Official Tarball (TM) would, IMHO, slant that
agnostic stance in a negative way. But maybe I'm too sensitive to
that. I'm not opposed to doing that if that is the consensus of the
core group -- and that would be a sneaky way to get the stuff into CVS
:-). But if the core group isn't thrilled with the idea (and my
instinct says they're not likely to be), I am opposed to the idea --
not to keep the stuff to myself, but to not hinder the
platform-neutral stance. IMHO, of course.
Of course, there are many projects that DO include all the files
necessary to build RPMs from their Official Tarball (TM).
16) How are CVS branches managed?
This was written by Tom Lane:
2001-05-07
If you just do basic "cvs checkout", "cvs update", "cvs commit", then
you'll always be dealing with the HEAD version of the files in CVS.
That's what you want for development, but if you need to patch past
stable releases then you have to be able to access and update the
"branch" portions of our CVS repository. We normally fork off a branch
for a stable release just before starting the development cycle for the
next release.
The first thing you have to know is the branch name for the branch you
are interested in getting at. To do this, look at some long-lived file,
say the top-level HISTORY file, with "cvs status -v" to see what the
branch names are. (Thanks to Ian Lance Taylor for pointing out that
this is the easiest way to do it.) Typical branch names are:
2001-05-07
If you just do basic "cvs checkout", "cvs update", "cvs commit", then
you'll always be dealing with the HEAD version of the files in CVS.
That's what you want for development, but if you need to patch past
stable releases then you have to be able to access and update the
"branch" portions of our CVS repository. We normally fork off a branch
for a stable release just before starting the development cycle for
the next release.
The first thing you have to know is the branch name for the branch you
are interested in getting at. To do this, look at some long-lived
file, say the top-level HISTORY file, with "cvs status -v" to see what
the branch names are. (Thanks to Ian Lance Taylor for pointing out
that this is the easiest way to do it.) Typical branch names are:
REL7_1_STABLE
REL7_0_PATCHES
REL6_5_PATCHES
OK, so how do you do work on a branch? By far the best way is to create
a separate checkout tree for the branch and do your work in that. Not
only is that the easiest way to deal with CVS, but you really need to
have the whole past tree available anyway to test your work. (And you
*better* test your work. Never forget that dot-releases tend to go out
with very little beta testing --- so whenever you commit an update to a
stable branch, you'd better be doubly sure that it's correct.)
Normally, to checkout the head branch, you just cd to the place you
want to contain the toplevel "pgsql" directory and say
OK, so how do you do work on a branch? By far the best way is to
create a separate checkout tree for the branch and do your work in
that. Not only is that the easiest way to deal with CVS, but you
really need to have the whole past tree available anyway to test your
work. (And you *better* test your work. Never forget that dot-releases
tend to go out with very little beta testing --- so whenever you
commit an update to a stable branch, you'd better be doubly sure that
it's correct.)
Normally, to checkout the head branch, you just cd to the place you
want to contain the toplevel "pgsql" directory and say
cvs ... checkout pgsql
To get a past branch, you cd to whereever you want it and say
To get a past branch, you cd to whereever you want it and say
cvs ... checkout -r BRANCHNAME pgsql
For example, just a couple days ago I did
For example, just a couple days ago I did
mkdir ~postgres/REL7_1
cd ~postgres/REL7_1
cvs ... checkout -r REL7_1_STABLE pgsql
and now I have a maintenance copy of 7.1.*.
When you've done a checkout in this way, the branch name is "sticky":
CVS automatically knows that this directory tree is for the branch,
and whenever you do "cvs update" or "cvs commit" in this tree, you'll
fetch or store the latest version in the branch, not the head version.
Easy as can be.
So, if you have a patch that needs to apply to both the head and a
recent stable branch, you have to make the edits and do the commit
twice, once in your development tree and once in your stable branch
tree. This is kind of a pain, which is why we don't normally fork
the tree right away after a major release --- we wait for a dot-release
or two, so that we won't have to double-patch the first wave of fixes.
and now I have a maintenance copy of 7.1.*.
When you've done a checkout in this way, the branch name is "sticky":
CVS automatically knows that this directory tree is for the branch,
and whenever you do "cvs update" or "cvs commit" in this tree, you'll
fetch or store the latest version in the branch, not the head version.
Easy as can be.
So, if you have a patch that needs to apply to both the head and a
recent stable branch, you have to make the edits and do the commit
twice, once in your development tree and once in your stable branch
tree. This is kind of a pain, which is why we don't normally fork the
tree right away after a major release --- we wait for a dot-release or
two, so that we won't have to double-patch the first wave of fixes.
17) How go I get involved in PostgreSQL development?
This was written by Lamar Owen:
2001-06-22
> If someone was interested in joining the development team, where would
> they...
> - Find a description of the open source development process used by the
> PostgreSQL team.
Read HACKERS for six months (or a full release cycle, whichever is longer).
Really. HACKERS _is_the process. The process is not well documented (AFAIK
-- it may be somewhere that I am not aware of) -- and it changes continually.
> - Find the development environment (OS, system, compilers, etc)
> required to develop code.
Developers Corner on the website
has links to this information. The distribution tarball itself
includes all the extra tools and documents that go beyond a good
Unix-like development environment. In general, a modern unix with a
modern gcc, GNU make or equivalent, autoconf (of a particular version),
and good working knowledge of those tools are required.
> - Find an area or two that needs some support.
The TODO list.
You've made the first step, by finding and subscribing to HACKERS. Once you
find an area to look at in the TODO, and have read the documentation on the
internals, etc, then you check out a current CVS,write what you are going to
write (keeping your CVS checkout up to date in the process), and make up a
patch (as a context diff only) and send to the PATCHES list, prefereably.
Discussion on the patch typically happens here. If the patch adds a major
feature, it would be a good idea to talk about it first on the HACKERS list,
in order to increase the chances of it being accepted, as well as toavoid
duplication of effort. Note that experienced developers with a proven track
record usually get the big jobs -- for more than one reason. Also note that
PostgreSQL is highly portable -- nonportable code will likely be dismissed
out of hand.
Once your contributions get accepted, things move from there. Typically, you
would be added as a developer on the list on the website when one of the
other developers recommends it. Membership on the steering committee is by
invitation only, by the other steering committee members, from what I have
gathered watching froma distance.
I make these statements from having watched the process for over two years.
To see a good example of how one goes about this, search the archives for the
name 'Tom Lane' and see what his first post consisted of, and where he took
things. In particular, note that this hasn't been _that_ long ago -- and his
bugfixing and general deep knowledge with this codebase is legendary. Take a
few days to read after him. And pay special attention to both the sheer
quantity as well as the painstaking quality of his work. Both are in high
demand.
2001-06-22
> If someone was interested in joining the development team, where
would
> they...
> - Find a description of the open source development process used by
the
> PostgreSQL team.
Read HACKERS for six months (or a full release cycle, whichever is
longer). Really. HACKERS _is_the process. The process is not well
documented (AFAIK -- it may be somewhere that I am not aware of) --
and it changes continually.
> - Find the development environment (OS, system, compilers, etc)
> required to develop code.
Developers Corner on the website has links to this information. The
distribution tarball itself includes all the extra tools and documents
that go beyond a good Unix-like development environment. In general, a
modern unix with a modern gcc, GNU make or equivalent, autoconf (of a
particular version), and good working knowledge of those tools are
required.
> - Find an area or two that needs some support.
The TODO list.
You've made the first step, by finding and subscribing to HACKERS.
Once you find an area to look at in the TODO, and have read the
documentation on the internals, etc, then you check out a current
CVS,write what you are going to write (keeping your CVS checkout up to
date in the process), and make up a patch (as a context diff only) and
send to the PATCHES list, prefereably.
Discussion on the patch typically happens here. If the patch adds a
major feature, it would be a good idea to talk about it first on the
HACKERS list, in order to increase the chances of it being accepted,
as well as toavoid duplication of effort. Note that experienced
developers with a proven track record usually get the big jobs -- for
more than one reason. Also note that PostgreSQL is highly portable --
nonportable code will likely be dismissed out of hand.
Once your contributions get accepted, things move from there.
Typically, you would be added as a developer on the list on the
website when one of the other developers recommends it. Membership on
the steering committee is by invitation only, by the other steering
committee members, from what I have gathered watching froma distance.
I make these statements from having watched the process for over two
years.
To see a good example of how one goes about this, search the archives
for the name 'Tom Lane' and see what his first post consisted of, and
where he took things. In particular, note that this hasn't been _that_
long ago -- and his bugfixing and general deep knowledge with this
codebase is legendary. Take a few days to read after him. And pay
special attention to both the sheer quantity as well as the
painstaking quality of his work. Both are in high demand.
doc/src/FAQ/FAQ_DEV.html
View file @ e0a5d6ce
......@@ -12,9 +12,8 @@
<H1>Developer's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for
PostgreSQL</H1>
<P>Last updated: Tue Dec 4 01:20:03 EST 2001</P>
<P>Last updated: Tue Dec 4 01:20:03 EST 2001</P>
<P>Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (<A href=
"mailto:pgman@candle.pha.pa.us">pgman@candle.pha.pa.us</A>)<BR>
</P>
......@@ -55,7 +54,7 @@
<A href="#15">15</A>) How are RPM's packaged?<BR>
<A href="#16">16</A>) How are CVS branches handled?<BR>
<A href="#17">17</A>) How do I get involved in PostgreSQL
development?<BR>
development?<BR>
<BR>
<HR>
......@@ -549,234 +548,248 @@
<H3><A name="15">15</A>) How are RPM's packaged?</H3>
<P>This was written by Lamar Owen:</P>
<P>2001-05-03
<P>As to how the RPMs are built -- to answer that question sanely requires
me to know how much experience you have with the whole RPM paradigm.
'How is the RPM built?' is a multifaceted question. The obvious simple
answer is that I maintain:
<P>
1.) A set of patches to make certain portions of the source
tree 'behave' in the different environment of the RPMset;
<P> 2.) The initscript;
<P> 3.) Any other ancilliary scripts and files;
<P> 4.) A README.rpm-dist document that tries to adequately document
both the differences between the RPM build and the WHY of the
differences, as well as useful RPM environment operations
(like, using syslog, upgrading, getting postmaster to
start at OS boot, etc);
<P> 5.) The spec file that throws it all together. This is not a
trivial undertaking in a package of this size.
<P>I then download and build on as many different canonical distributions
as I can -- currently I am able to build on Red Hat 6.2, 7.0, and 7.1 on
my personal hardware. Occasionally I receive opportunity from certain
commercial enterprises such as Great Bridge and PostgreSQL, Inc. to
build on other distributions.
<P>I test the build by installing the resulting packages and running the
regression tests. Once the build passes these tests, I upload to the
postgresql.org ftp server and make a release announcement. I am also
responsible for maintaining the RPM download area on the ftp site.
<P>You'll notice I said 'canonical' distributions above. That simply means
that the machine is as stock 'out of the box' as practical -- that is,
everything (except select few programs) on these boxen are installed by
RPM; only official Red Hat released RPMs are used (except in unusual
circumstances involving software that will not alter the build -- for
example, installing a newer non-RedHat version of the Dia diagramming
package is OK -- installing Python 2.1 on the box that has Python 1.5.2
installed is not, as that alters the PostgreSQL build). The RPM as
uploaded is built to as close to out-of-the-box pristine as is
possible. Only the standard released 'official to that release'
compiler is used -- and only the standard official kernel is used as
well.
<P>For a time I built on Mandrake for RedHat consumption -- no more.
Nonstandard RPM building systems are worse than useless. Which is not
to say that Mandrake is useless! By no means is Mandrake useless --
unless you are building Red Hat RPMs -- and Red Hat is useless if you're
trying to build Mandrake or SuSE RPMs, for that matter. But I would be
foolish to use 'Lamar Owen's Super Special RPM Blend Distro 0.1.2' to
build for public consumption! :-)
<P>I _do_ attempt to make the _source_ RPM compatible with as many
distributions as possible -- however, since I have limited resources (as
a volunteer RPM maintainer) I am limited as to the amount of testing
said build will get on other distributions, architectures, or systems.
<P>And, while I understand people's desire to immediately upgrade to the
newest version, realize that I do this as a side interest -- I have a
regular, full-time job as a broadcast
engineer/webmaster/sysadmin/Technical Director which occasionally
prevents me from making timely RPM releases. This happened during the
early part of the 7.1 beta cycle -- but I believe I was pretty much on
the ball for the Release Candidates and the final release.
<P>I am working towards a more open RPM distribution -- I would dearly love
to more fully document the process and put everything into CVS -- once I
figure out how I want to represent things such as the spec file in a CVS
form. It makes no sense to maintain a changelog, for instance, in the
spec file in CVS when CVS does a better job of changelogs -- I will need
to write a tool to generate a real spec file from a CVS spec-source file
that would add version numbers, changelog entries, etc to the result
before building the RPM. IOW, I need to rethink the process -- and then
go through the motions of putting my long RPM history into CVS one
version at a time so that version history information isn't lost.
<P>As to why all these files aren't part of the source tree, well, unless
there was a large cry for it to happen, I don't believe it should.
PostgreSQL is very platform-agnostic -- and I like that. Including the
RPM stuff as part of the Official Tarball (TM) would, IMHO, slant that
agnostic stance in a negative way. But maybe I'm too sensitive to
that. I'm not opposed to doing that if that is the consensus of the
core group -- and that would be a sneaky way to get the stuff into CVS
:-). But if the core group isn't thrilled with the idea (and my
instinct says they're not likely to be), I am opposed to the idea -- not
to keep the stuff to myself, but to not hinder the platform-neutral
stance. IMHO, of course.
<P>Of course, there are many projects that DO include all the files
necessary to build RPMs from their Official Tarball (TM).
<P>2001-05-03</P>
<P>As to how the RPMs are built -- to answer that question sanely
requires me to know how much experience you have with the whole RPM
paradigm. 'How is the RPM built?' is a multifaceted question. The
obvious simple answer is that I maintain:</P>
<P>1.) A set of patches to make certain portions of the source tree
'behave' in the different environment of the RPMset;</P>
<P>2.) The initscript;</P>
<P>3.) Any other ancilliary scripts and files;</P>
<P>4.) A README.rpm-dist document that tries to adequately document
both the differences between the RPM build and the WHY of the
differences, as well as useful RPM environment operations (like,
using syslog, upgrading, getting postmaster to start at OS boot,
etc);</P>
<P>5.) The spec file that throws it all together. This is not a
trivial undertaking in a package of this size.</P>
<P>I then download and build on as many different canonical
distributions as I can -- currently I am able to build on Red Hat
6.2, 7.0, and 7.1 on my personal hardware. Occasionally I receive
opportunity from certain commercial enterprises such as Great
Bridge and PostgreSQL, Inc. to build on other distributions.</P>
<P>I test the build by installing the resulting packages and
running the regression tests. Once the build passes these tests, I
upload to the postgresql.org ftp server and make a release
announcement. I am also responsible for maintaining the RPM
download area on the ftp site.</P>
<P>You'll notice I said 'canonical' distributions above. That
simply means that the machine is as stock 'out of the box' as
practical -- that is, everything (except select few programs) on
these boxen are installed by RPM; only official Red Hat released
RPMs are used (except in unusual circumstances involving software
that will not alter the build -- for example, installing a newer
non-RedHat version of the Dia diagramming package is OK --
installing Python 2.1 on the box that has Python 1.5.2 installed is
not, as that alters the PostgreSQL build). The RPM as uploaded is
built to as close to out-of-the-box pristine as is possible. Only
the standard released 'official to that release' compiler is used
-- and only the standard official kernel is used as well.</P>
<P>For a time I built on Mandrake for RedHat consumption -- no
more. Nonstandard RPM building systems are worse than useless.
Which is not to say that Mandrake is useless! By no means is
Mandrake useless -- unless you are building Red Hat RPMs -- and Red
Hat is useless if you're trying to build Mandrake or SuSE RPMs, for
that matter. But I would be foolish to use 'Lamar Owen's Super
Special RPM Blend Distro 0.1.2' to build for public consumption!
:-)</P>
<P>I _do_ attempt to make the _source_ RPM compatible with as many
distributions as possible -- however, since I have limited
resources (as a volunteer RPM maintainer) I am limited as to the
amount of testing said build will get on other distributions,
architectures, or systems.</P>
<P>And, while I understand people's desire to immediately upgrade
to the newest version, realize that I do this as a side interest --
I have a regular, full-time job as a broadcast
engineer/webmaster/sysadmin/Technical Director which occasionally
prevents me from making timely RPM releases. This happened during
the early part of the 7.1 beta cycle -- but I believe I was pretty
much on the ball for the Release Candidates and the final
release.</P>
<P>I am working towards a more open RPM distribution -- I would
dearly love to more fully document the process and put everything
into CVS -- once I figure out how I want to represent things such
as the spec file in a CVS form. It makes no sense to maintain a
changelog, for instance, in the spec file in CVS when CVS does a
better job of changelogs -- I will need to write a tool to generate
a real spec file from a CVS spec-source file that would add version
numbers, changelog entries, etc to the result before building the
RPM. IOW, I need to rethink the process -- and then go through the
motions of putting my long RPM history into CVS one version at a
time so that version history information isn't lost.</P>
<P>As to why all these files aren't part of the source tree, well,
unless there was a large cry for it to happen, I don't believe it
should. PostgreSQL is very platform-agnostic -- and I like that.
Including the RPM stuff as part of the Official Tarball (TM) would,
IMHO, slant that agnostic stance in a negative way. But maybe I'm
too sensitive to that. I'm not opposed to doing that if that is the
consensus of the core group -- and that would be a sneaky way to
get the stuff into CVS :-). But if the core group isn't thrilled
with the idea (and my instinct says they're not likely to be), I am
opposed to the idea -- not to keep the stuff to myself, but to not
hinder the platform-neutral stance. IMHO, of course.</P>
<P>Of course, there are many projects that DO include all the files
necessary to build RPMs from their Official Tarball (TM).</P>
<H3><A name="16">16</A>) How are CVS branches managed?</H3>
<P>This was written by Tom Lane:</P>
<P>
2001-05-07
<P>If you just do basic "cvs checkout", "cvs update", "cvs commit", then
you'll always be dealing with the HEAD version of the files in CVS.
That's what you want for development, but if you need to patch past
stable releases then you have to be able to access and update the
"branch" portions of our CVS repository. We normally fork off a branch
for a stable release just before starting the development cycle for the
next release.
<P>The first thing you have to know is the branch name for the branch you
are interested in getting at. To do this, look at some long-lived file,
say the top-level HISTORY file, with "cvs status -v" to see what the
branch names are. (Thanks to Ian Lance Taylor for pointing out that
this is the easiest way to do it.) Typical branch names are:
<P>2001-05-07</P>
<P>If you just do basic "cvs checkout", "cvs update", "cvs commit",
then you'll always be dealing with the HEAD version of the files in
CVS. That's what you want for development, but if you need to patch
past stable releases then you have to be able to access and update
the "branch" portions of our CVS repository. We normally fork off a
branch for a stable release just before starting the development
cycle for the next release.</P>
<P>The first thing you have to know is the branch name for the
branch you are interested in getting at. To do this, look at some
long-lived file, say the top-level HISTORY file, with "cvs status
-v" to see what the branch names are. (Thanks to Ian Lance Taylor
for pointing out that this is the easiest way to do it.) Typical
branch names are:</P>
<PRE>
REL7_1_STABLE
REL7_0_PATCHES
REL6_5_PATCHES
</PRE>
<P>OK, so how do you do work on a branch? By far the best way is to create
a separate checkout tree for the branch and do your work in that. Not
only is that the easiest way to deal with CVS, but you really need to
have the whole past tree available anyway to test your work. (And you
*better* test your work. Never forget that dot-releases tend to go out
with very little beta testing --- so whenever you commit an update to a
stable branch, you'd better be doubly sure that it's correct.)
<P>Normally, to checkout the head branch, you just cd to the place you
want to contain the toplevel "pgsql" directory and say
<P>OK, so how do you do work on a branch? By far the best way is to
create a separate checkout tree for the branch and do your work in
that. Not only is that the easiest way to deal with CVS, but you
really need to have the whole past tree available anyway to test
your work. (And you *better* test your work. Never forget that
dot-releases tend to go out with very little beta testing --- so
whenever you commit an update to a stable branch, you'd better be
doubly sure that it's correct.)</P>
<P>Normally, to checkout the head branch, you just cd to the place
you want to contain the toplevel "pgsql" directory and say</P>
<PRE>
cvs ... checkout pgsql
</PRE>
<P>To get a past branch, you cd to whereever you want it and say
<P>To get a past branch, you cd to whereever you want it and
say</P>
<PRE>
cvs ... checkout -r BRANCHNAME pgsql
</PRE>
<P>For example, just a couple days ago I did
<P>For example, just a couple days ago I did</P>
<PRE>
mkdir ~postgres/REL7_1
cd ~postgres/REL7_1
cvs ... checkout -r REL7_1_STABLE pgsql
</PRE>
<P>and now I have a maintenance copy of 7.1.*.
<P>and now I have a maintenance copy of 7.1.*.</P>
<P>When you've done a checkout in this way, the branch name is "sticky":
CVS automatically knows that this directory tree is for the branch,
and whenever you do "cvs update" or "cvs commit" in this tree, you'll
fetch or store the latest version in the branch, not the head version.
Easy as can be.
<P>When you've done a checkout in this way, the branch name is
"sticky": CVS automatically knows that this directory tree is for
the branch, and whenever you do "cvs update" or "cvs commit" in
this tree, you'll fetch or store the latest version in the branch,
not the head version. Easy as can be.</P>
<P>So, if you have a patch that needs to apply to both the head and a
recent stable branch, you have to make the edits and do the commit
twice, once in your development tree and once in your stable branch
tree. This is kind of a pain, which is why we don't normally fork
the tree right away after a major release --- we wait for a dot-release
or two, so that we won't have to double-patch the first wave of fixes.
<P>So, if you have a patch that needs to apply to both the head and
a recent stable branch, you have to make the edits and do the
commit twice, once in your development tree and once in your stable
branch tree. This is kind of a pain, which is why we don't normally
fork the tree right away after a major release --- we wait for a
dot-release or two, so that we won't have to double-patch the first
wave of fixes.</P>
<H3><A name="17">17</A>) How go I get involved in PostgreSQL
development?</H3>
<P>This was written by Lamar Owen:</P>
<P>
2001-06-22
<P>
&gt; If someone was interested in joining the development team, where would
<BR>
&gt; they...
<BR>
&gt; - Find a description of the open source development process used by the
<BR>
&gt; PostgreSQL team.
<BR>
<P>Read HACKERS for six months (or a full release cycle, whichever is longer).
Really. HACKERS _is_the process. The process is not well documented (AFAIK
-- it may be somewhere that I am not aware of) -- and it changes continually.
<P>
&gt; - Find the development environment (OS, system, compilers, etc)
<BR>
&gt; required to develop code.
<BR>
<P><a href="developers.postgresql.org">Developers Corner</a> on the website
has links to this information. The distribution tarball itself
includes all the extra tools and documents that go beyond a good
Unix-like development environment. In general, a modern unix with a
modern gcc, GNU make or equivalent, autoconf (of a particular version),
and good working knowledge of those tools are required.
<P>
&gt; - Find an area or two that needs some support.
<BR>
<P>The TODO list.
<P>You've made the first step, by finding and subscribing to HACKERS. Once you
find an area to look at in the TODO, and have read the documentation on the
internals, etc, then you check out a current CVS,write what you are going to
write (keeping your CVS checkout up to date in the process), and make up a
patch (as a context diff only) and send to the PATCHES list, prefereably.
<P>Discussion on the patch typically happens here. If the patch adds a major
feature, it would be a good idea to talk about it first on the HACKERS list,
in order to increase the chances of it being accepted, as well as toavoid
duplication of effort. Note that experienced developers with a proven track
record usually get the big jobs -- for more than one reason. Also note that
PostgreSQL is highly portable -- nonportable code will likely be dismissed
out of hand.
<P>Once your contributions get accepted, things move from there. Typically, you
would be added as a developer on the list on the website when one of the
other developers recommends it. Membership on the steering committee is by
invitation only, by the other steering committee members, from what I have
gathered watching froma distance.
<P>I make these statements from having watched the process for over two years.
<P>To see a good example of how one goes about this, search the archives for the
name 'Tom Lane' and see what his first post consisted of, and where he took
things. In particular, note that this hasn't been _that_ long ago -- and his
bugfixing and general deep knowledge with this codebase is legendary. Take a
few days to read after him. And pay special attention to both the sheer
quantity as well as the painstaking quality of his work. Both are in high
demand.
<P>2001-06-22</P>
<P>&gt; If someone was interested in joining the development team,
where would<BR>
&gt; they...<BR>
&gt; - Find a description of the open source development process
used by the<BR>
&gt; PostgreSQL team.<BR>
</P>
<P>Read HACKERS for six months (or a full release cycle, whichever
is longer). Really. HACKERS _is_the process. The process is not
well documented (AFAIK -- it may be somewhere that I am not aware
of) -- and it changes continually.</P>
<P>&gt; - Find the development environment (OS, system, compilers,
etc)<BR>
&gt; required to develop code.<BR>
</P>
<P><A href="developers.postgresql.org">Developers Corner</A> on the
website has links to this information. The distribution tarball
itself includes all the extra tools and documents that go beyond a
good Unix-like development environment. In general, a modern unix
with a modern gcc, GNU make or equivalent, autoconf (of a
particular version), and good working knowledge of those tools are
required.</P>
<P>&gt; - Find an area or two that needs some support.<BR>
</P>
<P>The TODO list.</P>
<P>You've made the first step, by finding and subscribing to
HACKERS. Once you find an area to look at in the TODO, and have
read the documentation on the internals, etc, then you check out a
current CVS,write what you are going to write (keeping your CVS
checkout up to date in the process), and make up a patch (as a
context diff only) and send to the PATCHES list, prefereably.</P>
<P>Discussion on the patch typically happens here. If the patch
adds a major feature, it would be a good idea to talk about it
first on the HACKERS list, in order to increase the chances of it
being accepted, as well as toavoid duplication of effort. Note that
experienced developers with a proven track record usually get the
big jobs -- for more than one reason. Also note that PostgreSQL is
highly portable -- nonportable code will likely be dismissed out of
hand.</P>
<P>Once your contributions get accepted, things move from there.
Typically, you would be added as a developer on the list on the
website when one of the other developers recommends it. Membership
on the steering committee is by invitation only, by the other
steering committee members, from what I have gathered watching
froma distance.</P>
<P>I make these statements from having watched the process for over
two years.</P>
<P>To see a good example of how one goes about this, search the
archives for the name 'Tom Lane' and see what his first post
consisted of, and where he took things. In particular, note that
this hasn't been _that_ long ago -- and his bugfixing and general
deep knowledge with this codebase is legendary. Take a few days to
read after him. And pay special attention to both the sheer
quantity as well as the painstaking quality of his work. Both are
in high demand.</P>
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