[wtp-releng] Releasing code for a build

[David M Williams <david_williams@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Phil, and Brad, I should have caught
the release issue earlier today ... but, here's the information you need
so you can do it in the future. 

I was originally going to send this
to just Phil and Brad, but then thought there was no harm sending to wtp-releng
list ... as a reminder, and 
information for future committers. We
used to have this documented somewhere else, I think ... but, suspect it's
lost or buried deep. 

= = = = =


The builds, as you might have guessed,
uses the map files, to pick out exactly what version of stuff to build.

The features define what bundles to
include (and which other features to include) but then the PDE batch build
figures out 
the exact CVS version based on the map
files. 

Your map file is in the "releng"
project, if you haven't see it yet. 

So, one way (the bad way) to release
something to a build is to tag project, then go and update the map file
with that tag string. 

Another (the better) way is to use the
"releng tool" that is provided by the releng team of the Eclipse
Platform. 

It is a plugin you need to include in
your development environment, and it should "match" the exact
same version of your development environment. 
It is usually listed last on the Platform's
build page (that is it's a separate download). 
But for convenience, I've recently added
it to our own down load pages. 
So, on this download page, 
http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/committers/drops/R3.0/I-I20071025154219-20071025154219/
if you got the version of eclipse sdk
listed there to use as part of your development environment, 
eclipse-SDK-I20071010-1200-win32.zip
 
then you could get the releng tool listed
there 
org.eclipse.releng.tools-I20071010-1200.zip

(the importance of "matching"
is the releng tool uses some non-api methods, so, just in case those change,
you need to make sure you get the matching version). 

We have a convention about CVS tags
used in this context, basically 'v' date time, with no spaces, and where
the time is UTC (since we are sort of a world wide development team, that's

the only way to make sure they are all
correctly relative to when they really were tagged). So, for example, v200710252025
... in other words, vYYYYMMDDHHMM 

So, once your code is committed to HEAD,
and you are ready to have it included in a build, you can use the releng
tool, under Team... Release ... 
to both tag the project, and update
the map files for you with that tag and will commit the map file to head
of releng project .... so, typo's are less likely. 
Note, you do need to make sure your
releng project has the latest (HEAD) version of maps, in case someone else
has changed your map. 
Also, the releng tool wizard presents
you with pages so you can see what has changed from the last release (just
to sanity check it's what you expected) and/or, you can multiply 
select several projects and "release"
them, and the tool is smart enough not to tag or change anything if there
have been no changes made. 

Hope this note helps, Feel free to ask
more questions.