WTP/Build/WTP Patch Process for Release 1.5.5

What is an "official patch"?

Under some circumstance the WTP project may find it desirable to produce a "feature patch" which typically includes exactly one jar, that has a fix for exactly one bug. These are done for bugs which happen to be considered extremely severe or blocking -- but may not even apply to all installs, or all users. (So, as a general rule, they are not to be installed by everyone ... but any bugs fixed by patches will be fixed in the next maintenance release ... though the exact fix might be different).

While few, it is important to create and apply these in a controlled, repeatable process in order to maintain product level professional quality. For example, it is important to compile with exactly the same compiler, and exactly the same "pre-reqs" that was used to create the original build.

Technical Notes

Normally, only the "releng team" (ok ... me and Naci :) need to mess with patches. There should be very few, very special purpose, handled and produced on a case-by-case bases.

There is a special stream to that contains code related to these patches:

R1_5_5_patches

There is a special component

wtp-patches

in the releng.wtpbuilder cvs project that along with special distribution targets

patches.build
patches.site
patches.upload
patches.tests

that produce patch features that contains a special feature to "host" the plugin. See Eclipse Help for details, but remember, the patch feature must say "requires" the feature that it is patching, including all 4 fields of the version -- the 'qualifier' field is not computed automatically.

The end-result is

• a compressed archive on http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/patches/
• a feature and plugin suitable for an update site. These update jars are actually in the same directory as the zip download, but normally not visible from the web page, and normally not actually copied over to the update site.

If it desired to be generally available to all WTP users (by them using the Eclipse Update Manager), then the update features and plugins have to be copied to the downloads/webtools/updates directory. If update is done, remember to

1. update the site.xml
2. recreate the digest
3. run pack200

Bugs which will be made public on update site must go through PMC Review before being put on update site, since in theory that could effect other adopters/products, so needs extra review.

Getting the feature patch in to a build

There is a special feature that drives the patch build:

org.eclipse.wtp.patch.assembly.feature

The feature patch with hosts the fixed bundle needs to be added to this special feature, and all released to the releng project (maps) in the R1_5_5_patches branch.

The patch build is typically not automatically, and must be started manually.

Questions

Feel free to ask questions on wtp-releng@eclipse.org if there are questions.

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