7.3 Release and Patch Generation

  This mode allows to copy a source tree to another location from which a rebuild of all targets is possible. Files maintained by CVS that are not needed by VMake to build the project can be marked for release by Release-Target (see Release-Target), e.g., ``README'' files. Otherwise they are not copied to the release. During release and patch generating a release information file with all filenames and file information (modification stamp, checksum) is saved in the top directory of the release. The name of this directory is taken from the environment variable VRELEASE or the command line option ReleaseDirectory. Only this release information file is required to create a patch later on. Different types of release or patches may be created. After release generation a full second source tree of the project is available under the destination directory. With the command line option

1. majorRelease, a new major release is created,
2. minorRelease, a new minor release is created,
3. patchRelease, a patch release is created. For a patch release a major or minor release has to exist already and is automatically updated, e.g., a full source tree is reconstructed even if files had been missing. The patch is compressed if the VBS data compression program is available and the command line option compressedPatch is used.

Automatically generated code is not released or patched if it can be reconstructed with a built-in CASE tool or a program generated by VMake. For external code generators the automatically generated source file is released, because the program may not be available on the target system. For patches a new patch file will only be created, if there are some modifications in the project else the temporary patch data file is removed and the project remains unchanged. A release of a project must always be distributed together with the corresponding release information file in order to apply patches later.

 
• 7.3.1 Tagged Releases/Patches
• 7.3.2 Applying patches