1=============================
2How To Validate a New Release
3=============================
4
5.. contents::
6   :local:
7   :depth: 1
8
9Introduction
10============
11
12This document contains information about testing the release candidates that will
13ultimately be the next LLVM release. For more information on how to manage the
14actual release, please refer to :doc:`HowToReleaseLLVM`.
15
16Overview of the Release Process
17-------------------------------
18
19Once the release process starts, the Release Manager will ask for volunteers,
20and it'll be the role of each volunteer to:
21
22* Test and benchmark the previous release
23
24* Test and benchmark each release candidate, comparing to the previous release and candidates
25
26* Identify, reduce and report every regression found during tests and benchmarks
27
28* Make sure the critical bugs get fixed and merged to the next release candidate
29
30Not all bugs or regressions are show-stoppers and it's a bit of a grey area what
31should be fixed before the next candidate and what can wait until the next release.
32
33It'll depend on:
34
35* The severity of the bug, how many people it affects and if it's a regression or a
36  known bug. Known bugs are "unsupported features" and some bugs can be disabled if
37  they have been implemented recently.
38
39* The stage in the release. Less critical bugs should be considered to be fixed between
40  RC1 and RC2, but not so much at the end of it.
41
42* If it's a correctness or a performance regression. Performance regression tends to be
43  taken more lightly than correctness.
44
45.. _scripts:
46
47Scripts
48=======
49
50The scripts are in the ``utils/release`` directory.
51
52test-release.sh
53---------------
54
55This script will check-out, configure and compile LLVM+Clang (+ most add-ons,
56like ``compiler-rt``, ``libcxx`` and ``clang-extra-tools``) in three stages, and
57will test the final stage.  It'll have installed the final binaries on the
58Phase3/Releasei(+Asserts) directory, and that's the one you should use for the
59test-suite and other external tests.
60
61To run the script on a specific release candidate run::
62
63   ./test-release.sh \
64        -release 3.4 \
65        -rc 1 \
66        -triple x86_64-apple-darwin \
67        -no-64bit \
68        -test-asserts \
69        -no-compare-files
70
71Each system will require different options. For instance, x86_64 will obviously not need
72``-no-64bit`` while 32-bit systems will, or the script will fail.
73
74The important flags to get right are:
75
76* On the pre-release, you should change ``-rc 1`` to ``-final``. On RC2, change it to ``-rc 2`` and so on.
77
78* On non-release testing, you can use ``-final`` in conjunction with ``-no-checkout``, but you'll have to
79  create the ``final`` directory by hand and link the correct source dir to ``final/llvm.src``.
80
81* For release candidates, you need ``-test-asserts``, or it won't create a "Release+Asserts" directory,
82  which is needed for release testing and benchmarking. This will take twice as long.
83
84* On the final candidate you just need Release builds, and that's the binary directory you'll have to pack.
85
86This script builds three phases of Clang+LLVM twice each (Release and Release+Asserts), so use
87screen or nohup to avoid headaches, since it'll take a long time.
88
89Use the ``--help`` option to see all the options and chose it according to your needs.
90
91
92findRegressions-nightly.py
93--------------------------
94
95TODO
96
97.. _test-suite:
98
99Test Suite
100==========
101
102.. contents::
103   :local:
104
105Follow the `LNT Quick Start Guide <http://llvm.org/docs/lnt/quickstart.html>`__ link on how to set-up the test-suite
106
107The binary location you'll have to use for testing is inside the ``rcN/Phase3/Release+Asserts/llvmCore-REL-RC.install``.
108Link that directory to an easier location and run the test-suite.
109
110An example on the run command line, assuming you created a link from the correct
111install directory to ``~/devel/llvm/install``::
112
113   ./sandbox/bin/python sandbox/bin/lnt runtest \
114       nt \
115       -j4 \
116       --sandbox sandbox \
117       --test-suite ~/devel/llvm/test/test-suite \
118       --cc ~/devel/llvm/install/bin/clang \
119       --cxx ~/devel/llvm/install/bin/clang++
120
121It should have no new regressions, compared to the previous release or release candidate. You don't need to fix
122all the bugs in the test-suite, since they're not necessarily meant to pass on all architectures all the time. This is
123due to the nature of the result checking, which relies on direct comparison, and most of the time, the failures are
124related to bad output checking, rather than bad code generation.
125
126If the errors are in LLVM itself, please report every single regression found as blocker, and all the other bugs
127as important, but not necessarily blocking the release to proceed. They can be set as "known failures" and to be
128fix on a future date.
129
130.. _pre-release-process:
131
132Pre-Release Process
133===================
134
135.. contents::
136   :local:
137
138When the release process is announced on the mailing list, you should prepare
139for the testing, by applying the same testing you'll do on the release candidates,
140on the previous release.
141
142You should:
143
144* Download the previous release sources from http://llvm.org/releases/download.html.
145
146* Run the test-release.sh script on ``final`` mode (change ``-rc 1`` to ``-final``).
147
148* Once all three stages are done, it'll test the final stage.
149
150* Using the ``Phase3/Release+Asserts/llvmCore-MAJ.MIN-final.install`` base, run the test-suite.
151
152If the final phase's ``make check-all`` failed, it's a good idea to also test the
153intermediate stages by going on the obj directory and running ``make check-all`` to find
154if there's at least one stage that passes (helps when reducing the error for bug report
155purposes).
156
157.. _release-process:
158
159Release Process
160===============
161
162.. contents::
163   :local:
164
165When the Release Manager sends you the release candidate, download all sources,
166unzip on the same directory (there will be sym-links from the appropriate places
167to them), and run the release test as above.
168
169You should:
170
171* Download the current candidate sources from where the release manager points you
172  (ex. http://llvm.org/pre-releases/3.3/rc1/).
173
174* Repeat the steps above with ``-rc 1``, ``-rc 2`` etc modes and run the test-suite
175  the same way.
176
177* Compare the results, report all errors on Bugzilla and publish the binary blob
178  where the release manager can grab it.
179
180Once the release manages announces that the latest candidate is the good one, you
181have to pack the ``Release`` (no Asserts) install directory on ``Phase3`` and that
182will be the official binary.
183
184* Rename (or link) ``clang+llvm-REL-ARCH-ENV`` to the .install directory
185
186* Tar that into the same name with ``.tar.gz`` extensioan from outside the directory
187
188* Make it available for the release manager to download
189
190.. _bug-reporting:
191
192Bug Reporting Process
193=====================
194
195.. contents::
196   :local:
197
198If you found regressions or failures when comparing a release candidate with the
199previous release, follow the rules below:
200
201* Critical bugs on compilation should be fixed as soon as possible, possibly before
202  releasing the binary blobs.
203
204* Check-all tests should be fixed before the next release candidate, but can wait
205  until the test-suite run is finished.
206
207* Bugs in the test suite or unimportant check-all tests can be fixed in between
208  release candidates.
209
210* New features or recent big changes, when close to the release, should have done
211  in a way that it's easy to disable. If they misbehave, prefer disabling them than
212  releasing an unstable (but untested) binary package.
213