Instructions to create pretest or release tarballs. -- originally written by Eli Zaretskii, amended by Francesco Potort́ For each step, check for possible errors. 1. cvs -q update -Pd 2. Bootstrap to make 100% sure all elc files are up-to-date, and to make sure that the later tagged version will bootstrap, should it be necessary to check it out. 3. Set the version number (M-x load-file RET admin/admin.el RET, then M-x set-version RET). For a release, add released change log entries (M-x add-release-logs RET). 4. rm configure; make bootstrap 5. Commit configure, README, lisp/loaddefs.el, lisp/cus-load.el, lisp/finder-inf.el, lisp/version.el, man/emacs.texi. For a release, also commit the ChangeLog files in all directories. 6. make-dist --snapshot. Check the contents of the new tar with admin/diff-tar-files against an older tar file. Some old pretest tarballs are kept under fencepost.gnu.org:~pot/emacs-pretest/, while old emacs tarballs are at . 7. xdelta delta emacs-OLD.tar.gz emacs-NEW.tar.gz emacs-OLD-NEW.xdelta 8. tar -zxf emacs-NEW.tar.gz; cd emacs-NEW configure && make && make -n install Use `script' or M-x compile to save the compilation log in compile-NEW.log and compare it against an old one. The easiest way to do that is to visit the old log in Emacs, change the version number of the old Emacs to __, do the same with the new log and do M-x ediff. Especially check that Info files aren't built. 9. cd EMACS_ROOT_DIR; cvs tag TAG TAG is EMACS_PRETEST_XX_YY_ZZZ for a pretest, EMACS_XX_YY for a release. 10. admin/make-announcement OLD NEW This creates an announcement for pretests. OLD is the version used to make deltas with respect to NEW. Anouncements for pretests need to be crafted by hand. Use an older announcement to start with. 11. For a pretest, do: rsync -aP emacs-NEW.tar.gz emacs-OLD-NEW.xdelta compile-NEW.log \ emacs-NEW.announce alpha.gnu.org:/home/alpha/gnu/emacs/pretest/. For a release, do: rsync -aP emacs-NEW.tar.gz emacs-OLD-NEW.xdelta \ alpha.gnu.org:/home/ftp/gnu/emacs/. 12. Verify that the files are visible at ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/ for a pretest, at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/ for a release. 13. For a pretest, let Richard Stallman know about the new pretest and tell him to announce it using the announcement you prepared. Remind him to set a Reply-to header to . For a release, Richard should prepare the announcement himself, possibly starting from a previous announcment.