Releasing a Version
How to Prepare a Release
This file gives an overview of what is necessary to build binary releases for NumPy.
Current build and release info
The current info on building and releasing NumPy and SciPy is scattered in several places. It should be summarized in one place, updated, and where necessary described in more detail. The sections below list all places where useful info can be found.
Source tree
- INSTALL.rst.txt
- release.sh
- pavement.py
NumPy Docs
- https://github.com/numpy/numpy/blob/master/doc/HOWTO_RELEASE.rst.txt
- http://projects.scipy.org/numpy/wiki/MicrosoftToolchainSupport (dead link)
SciPy.org wiki
- https://www.scipy.org/Installing_SciPy and links on that page.
- http://new.scipy.org/building/windows.html (dead link)
Doc wiki
Release Scripts
Supported platforms and versions
Python 2.7 and >=3.4 are the currently supported versions when building from source. We test NumPy against all these versions every time we merge code to master. Binary installers may be available for a subset of these versions (see below).
OS X
Python 2.7 and >=3.4 are the versions for which we provide binary installers. OS X versions >= 10.6 are supported. We build binary wheels for OSX that are compatible with Python.org Python, system Python, homebrew and macports - see this OSX wheel building summary for details.
Windows
We build 32- and 64-bit wheels for Python 2.7, 3.4, 3.5 on Windows. Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 are supported. We build NumPy using the MSVC compilers on Appveyor, but we are hoping to update to a mingw-w64 toolchain. The Windows wheels use ATLAS for BLAS / LAPACK.
Linux
We build and ship manylinux1 wheels for NumPy. Many Linux distributions include their own binary builds of NumPy.
BSD / Solaris
No binaries are provided, but successful builds on Solaris and BSD have been reported.
Tool chain
We build all our wheels on cloud infrastructure - so this list of compilers is for information and debugging builds locally. See the .travis.yml
and appveyor.yml
scripts in the numpy wheels repo for the definitive source of the build recipes. Packages that are available using pip are noted.
Compilers
The same gcc version is used as the one with which Python itself is built on each platform. At the moment this means:
- OS X builds on travis currently use clang . It appears that binary wheels for OSX >= 10.6 can be safely built from the travis-ci OSX 10.9 VMs when building against the Python from the Python.org installers;
- Windows builds use the MSVC version corresponding to the Python being built against;
- Manylinux1 wheels use the gcc provided on the Manylinux docker images.
You will need Cython for building the binaries. Cython compiles the .pyx
files in the NumPy distribution to .c
files.
Building source archives and wheels
You will need write permission for numpy-wheels in order to trigger wheel builds.
- Python(s) from python.org or linux distro.
- cython
- virtualenv (pip)
- Paver (pip)
- numpy-wheels https://github.com/MacPython/numpy-wheels (clone)
Building docs
Building the documents requires a number of latex .sty
files. Install them all to avoid aggravation.
- Sphinx (pip)
- numpydoc (pip)
- Matplotlib
- Texlive (or MikTeX on Windows)
Uploading to PyPI
- terryfy https://github.com/MacPython/terryfy (clone).
- beautifulsoup4 (pip)
- delocate (pip)
- auditwheel (pip)
- twine (pip)
Generating author/pr lists
You will need a personal access token https://help.github.com/article/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/ so that scripts can access the github NumPy repository.
- gitpython (pip)
- pygithub (pip)
Virtualenv
Virtualenv is a very useful tool to keep several versions of packages around. It is also used in the Paver script to build the docs.
What is released
Wheels
- Windows wheels for Python 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, for 32- and 64-bit, built using Appveyor;
- Dual architecture OSX wheels built via travis-ci;
- 32- and 64-bit Manylinux1 wheels built via travis-ci.
See the numpy wheels building repository for more detail.
Other
- Release Notes
- Changelog
Source distribution
We build source releases in both .zip and .tar.gz formats.
Release process
Agree on a release schedule
A typical release schedule is one beta, two release candidates and a final release. It’s best to discuss the timing on the mailing list first, in order for people to get their commits in on time, get doc wiki edits merged, etc. After a date is set, create a new maintenance/x.y.z branch, add new empty release notes for the next version in the master branch and update the Trac Milestones.
Make sure current branch builds a package correctly
git clean -fxd
python setup.py bdist
python setup.py sdist
To actually build the binaries after everything is set up correctly, the release.sh script can be used. For details of the build process itself, it is best to read the pavement.py script.
Note
The following steps are repeated for the beta(s), release candidates(s) and the final release.
Check deprecations
Before the release branch is made, it should be checked that all deprecated code that should be removed is actually removed, and all new deprecations say in the docstring or deprecation warning at what version the code will be removed.
Check the C API version number
The C API version needs to be tracked in three places
- numpy/core/setup_common.py
- numpy/core/code_generators/cversions.txt
- numpy/core/include/numpy/numpyconfig.h
There are three steps to the process.
- If the API has changed, increment the C_API_VERSION in setup_common.py. The API is unchanged only if any code compiled against the current API will be backward compatible with the last released NumPy version. Any changes to C structures or additions to the public interface will make the new API not backward compatible.
- If the C_API_VERSION in the first step has changed, or if the hash of the API has changed, the cversions.txt file needs to be updated. To check the hash, run the script numpy/core/cversions.py and note the API hash that is printed. If that hash does not match the last hash in numpy/core/code_generators/cversions.txt the hash has changed. Using both the appropriate C_API_VERSION and hash, add a new entry to cversions.txt. If the API version was not changed, but the hash differs, you will need to comment out the previous entry for that API version. For instance, in NumPy 1.9 annotations were added, which changed the hash, but the API was the same as in 1.8. The hash serves as a check for API changes, but it is not definitive.
- If steps 1 and 2 are done correctly, compiling the release should not give a warning “API mismatch detect at the beginning of the build”.
The C ABI version number in numpy/core/setup_common.py should only be updated for a major release.
Check the release notes
Use towncrier to build the release note, copy it to the proper name, and commit the changes. This will remove all the fragments from changelog/*.rst
and add doc/release/latest-note.rst
which must be renamed with the proper version number:
python -mtowncrier --version "Numpy 1.11.0"
git mv doc/release/latest-note.rst doc/release/1.11.0-notes.rst
git commit -m"Create release note"
Check that the release notes are up-to-date.
Update the release notes with a Highlights section. Mention some of the following:
- major new features
- deprecated and removed features
- supported Python versions
- for SciPy, supported NumPy version(s)
- outlook for the near future
Update the release status and create a release “tag”
Identify the commit hash of the release, e.g. 1b2e1d63ff.
git co 1b2e1d63ff # gives warning about detached head
First, change/check the following variables in pavement.py depending on the release version:
RELEASE_NOTES = 'doc/release/1.7.0-notes.rst'
LOG_START = 'v1.6.0'
LOG_END = 'maintenance/1.7.x'
Do any other changes. When you are ready to release, do the following changes:
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index b1f53e3..8b36dbe 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ PLATFORMS = ["Windows", "Linux", "Solaris", "Mac OS-
MAJOR = 1
MINOR = 7
MICRO = 0
-ISRELEASED = False
+ISRELEASED = True
VERSION = '%d.%d.%drc1' % (MAJOR, MINOR, MICRO)
# Return the git revision as a string
And make sure the VERSION
variable is set properly.
Now you can make the release commit and tag. We recommend you don’t push the commit or tag immediately, just in case you need to do more cleanup. We prefer to defer the push of the tag until we’re confident this is the exact form of the released code (see: Push the release tag and commit):
git commit -s -m “REL: Release.” setup.py git tag -s <version>
The -s
flag makes a PGP (usually GPG) signed tag. Please do sign the release tags.
The release tag should have the release number in the annotation (tag message). Unfortunately, the name of a tag can be changed without breaking the signature, the contents of the message cannot.
See: https://github.com/scipy/scipy/issues/4919 for a discussion of signing release tags, and https://keyring.debian.org/creating-key.html for instructions on creating a GPG key if you do not have one.
To make your key more readily identifiable as you, consider sending your key to public keyservers, with a command such as:
gpg --send-keys <yourkeyid>
Apply patch to fix bogus strides
NPY_RELAXED_STRIDE_CHECKING was made the default in NumPy 1.10.0 and bogus strides are used in the development branch to smoke out problems. The patch should be updated if necessary and applied to the release branch to rationalize the strides.
Update the version of the master branch
Increment the release number in setup.py. Release candidates should have “rc1” (or “rc2”, “rcN”) appended to the X.Y.Z format.
Also create a new version hash in cversions.txt and a corresponding version define NPY_x_y_API_VERSION in numpyconfig.h
Trigger the wheel builds on travis-ci and Appveyor
See the numpy wheels repository.
In that repository edit the files:
.travis.yml
;appveyor.yml
.
In both cases, set the BUILD_COMMIT
variable to the current release tag - e.g. v1.11.1
.
Make sure that the release tag has been pushed.
Trigger a build by doing a commit of your edits to .travis.yml
and appveyor.yml
to the repository:
cd /path/to/numpy-wheels
# Edit .travis.yml, appveyor.yml
git commit
git push
The wheels, once built, appear at a Rackspace container pointed at by:
- http://wheels.scipy.org
- https://3f23b170c54c2533c070-1c8a9b3114517dc5fe17b7c3f8c63a43.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com
The HTTP address may update first, and you should wait 15 minutes after the build finishes before fetching the binaries.
Make the release
Build the changelog and notes for upload with:
paver write_release_and_log
Build and archive documentation
Do:
cd doc/
make dist
to check that the documentation is in a buildable state. Then, after tagging, create an archive of the documentation in the numpy/doc repo:
# This checks out github.com/numpy/doc and adds (``git add``) the
# documentation to the checked out repo.
make merge-doc
# Now edit the ``index.html`` file in the repo to reflect the new content,
# and commit the changes
git -C dist/merge commit -a "Add documentation for <version>"
# Push to numpy/doc repo
git -C push
Update PyPI
The wheels and source should be uploaded to PyPI.
You should upload the wheels first, and the source formats last, to make sure that pip users don’t accidentally get a source install when they were expecting a binary wheel.
You can do this automatically using the wheel-uploader
script from https://github.com/MacPython/terryfy. Here is the recommended incantation for downloading all the Windows, Manylinux, OSX wheels and uploading to PyPI.
NPY_WHLS=~/wheelhouse # local directory to cache wheel downloads
CDN_URL=https://3f23b170c54c2533c070-1c8a9b3114517dc5fe17b7c3f8c63a43.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com
wheel-uploader -u $CDN_URL -w $NPY_WHLS -v -s -t win numpy 1.11.1rc1
wheel-uploader -u $CDN_URL -w warehouse -v -s -t macosx numpy 1.11.1rc1
wheel-uploader -u $CDN_URL -w warehouse -v -s -t manylinux1 numpy 1.11.1rc1
The -v
flag gives verbose feedback, -s
causes the script to sign the wheels with your GPG key before upload. Don’t forget to upload the wheels before the source tarball, so there is no period for which people switch from an expected binary install to a source install from PyPI.
There are two ways to update the source release on PyPI, the first one is:
$ git clean -fxd # to be safe
$ python setup.py sdist --formats=gztar,zip # to check
# python setup.py sdist --formats=gztar,zip upload --sign
This will ask for your key PGP passphrase, in order to sign the built source packages.
The second way is to upload the PKG_INFO file inside the sdist dir in the web interface of PyPI. The source tarball can also be uploaded through this interface.
Push the release tag and commit
Finally, now you are confident this tag correctly defines the source code that you released you can push the tag and release commit up to github:
git push # Push release commit
git push upstream <version> # Push tag named <version>
where upstream
points to the main https://github.com/numpy/numpy.git repository.
Update scipy.org
A release announcement with a link to the download site should be placed in the sidebar of the front page of scipy.org.
The scipy.org should be a PR at https://github.com/scipy/scipy.org. The file that needs modification is www/index.rst
. Search for News
.
Announce to the lists
The release should be announced on the mailing lists of NumPy and SciPy, to python-announce, and possibly also those of Matplotlib, IPython and/or Pygame.
During the beta/RC phase, an explicit request for testing the binaries with several other libraries (SciPy/Matplotlib/Pygame) should be posted on the mailing list.
Announce to Linux Weekly News
Email the editor of LWN to let them know of the release. Directions at: https://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#contact
After the final release
After the final release is announced, a few administrative tasks are left to be done:
- Forward port changes in the release branch to release notes and release scripts, if any, to master branch.
- Update the Milestones in Trac.
Step-by-Step Directions
This file contains a walkthrough of the NumPy 1.14.5 release on Linux. The commands can be copied into the command line, but be sure to replace 1.14.5 by the correct version.
Release Walkthrough
Note that in the code snippets below, upstream
refers to the root repository on github and origin
to a fork in your personal account. You may need to make adjustments if you have not forked the repository but simply cloned it locally. You can also edit .git/config
and add upstream
if it isn’t already present.
Backport Pull Requests
Changes that have been marked for this release must be backported to the maintenance/1.14.x branch.
Update Release documentation
The file doc/changelog/1.14.5-changelog.rst
should be updated to reflect the final list of changes and contributors. This text can be generated by:
$ python tools/changelog.py $GITHUB v1.14.4..maintenance/1.14.x > doc/changelog/1.14.5-changelog.rst
where GITHUB
contains your github access token. This text may also be appended to doc/release/1.14.5-notes.rst
for release updates, though not for new releases like 1.14.0
, as the changelogs for *.0
releases tend to be excessively long. The doc/source/release.rst
file should also be updated with a link to the new release notes. These changes should be committed to the maintenance branch, and later will be forward ported to master.
Finish the Release Note
Fill out the release note doc/release/1.14.5-notes.rst
calling out significant changes.
Prepare the release commit
Checkout the branch for the release, make sure it is up to date, and clean the repository:
$ git checkout maintenance/1.14.x
$ git pull upstream maintenance/1.14.x
$ git submodule update
$ git clean -xdf > /dev/null
Edit pavement.py and setup.py as detailed in HOWTO_RELEASE:
$ gvim pavement.py setup.py
$ git commit -a -m"REL: NumPy 1.14.5 release."
Sanity check:
$ python runtests.py -m "full" # NumPy < 1.17 only
$ python3 runtests.py -m "full"
Push this release directly onto the end of the maintenance branch. This requires write permission to the numpy repository:
$ git push upstream maintenance/1.14.x
As an example, see the 1.14.3 REL commit: https://github.com/numpy/numpy/commit/73299826729be58cec179b52c656adfcaefada93.
Build source releases
Paver is used to build the source releases. It will create the release
and release/installers
directories and put the *.zip
and *.tar.gz
source releases in the latter.
$ cython --version # check that you have the correct cython version
$ paver sdist # sdist will do a git clean -xdf, so we omit that
Build wheels
Trigger the wheels build by pointing the numpy-wheels repository at this commit. This can take a while. The numpy-wheels repository is cloned from https://github.com/MacPython/numpy-wheels. Start with a pull as the repo may have been accessed and changed by someone else and a push will fail:
$ cd ../numpy-wheels
$ git pull upstream master
$ git branch <new version> # only when starting new numpy version
$ git checkout v1.14.x # v1.14.x already existed for the 1.14.4 release
Edit the .travis.yml
and .appveyor.yml
files to make sure they have the correct version, and put in the commit hash for the REL
commit created above for BUILD_COMMIT
, see the _example from v1.14.3 :
$ gvim .travis.yml .appveyor.yml
$ git commit -a
$ git push upstream HEAD
Now wait. If you get nervous at the amount of time taken – the builds can take several hours– you can check the build progress by following the links provided at https://github.com/MacPython/numpy-wheels to check the travis and appveyor build status. Check if all the needed wheels have been built and uploaded before proceeding. There should currently be 22 of them at https://wheels.scipy.org, 4 for Mac, 8 for Windows, and 10 for Linux. Note that sometimes builds, like tests, fail for unrelated reasons and you will need to restart them.
Download wheels
When the wheels have all been successfully built, download them using the wheel-uploader
in the terryfy
repository. The terryfy repository may be cloned from https://github.com/MacPython/terryfy if you don’t already have it. The wheels can also be uploaded using the wheel-uploader
, but we prefer to download all the wheels to the ../numpy/release/installers
directory and upload later using twine
:
$ cd ../terryfy
$ git pull upstream master
$ CDN_URL=https://3f23b170c54c2533c070-1c8a9b3114517dc5fe17b7c3f8c63a43.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com
$ NPY_WHLS=../numpy/release/installers
$ ./wheel-uploader -u $CDN_URL -n -v -w $NPY_WHLS -t win numpy 1.14.5
$ ./wheel-uploader -u $CDN_URL -n -v -w $NPY_WHLS -t manylinux1 numpy 1.14.5
$ ./wheel-uploader -u $CDN_URL -n -v -w $NPY_WHLS -t macosx numpy 1.14.5
If you do this often, consider making CDN_URL and NPY_WHLS part of your default environment.
Generate the README files
This needs to be done after all installers are downloaded, but before the pavement file is updated for continued development:
$ cd ../numpy
$ paver write_release
Tag the release
Once the wheels have been built and downloaded without errors, go back to your numpy repository in the maintenance branch and tag the REL
commit, signing it with your gpg key:
$ git tag -s v1.14.5
You should upload your public gpg key to github, so that the tag will appear “verified” there.
Check that the files in release/installers
have the correct versions, then push the tag upstream:
$ git push upstream v1.14.5
We wait until this point to push the tag because it is public and should not be changed after it has been pushed.
Reset the maintenance branch into a development state
Add another REL
commit to the numpy maintenance branch, which resets the ISREALEASED
flag to False
and increments the version counter:
$ gvim pavement.py setup.py
Create release notes for next release and edit them to set the version:
$ cp doc/release/template.rst doc/release/1.14.6-notes.rst
$ gvim doc/release/1.14.6-notes.rst
$ git add doc/release/1.14.6-notes.rst
Add new release notes to the documentation release list:
$ gvim doc/source/release.rst
Commit the result:
$ git commit -a -m"REL: prepare 1.14.x for further development"
$ git push upstream maintenance/1.14.x
Upload to PyPI
Upload to PyPI using twine
. A recent version of twine
of is needed after recent PyPI changes, version 1.11.0
was used here.
$ cd ../numpy
$ twine upload release/installers/*.whl
$ twine upload release/installers/numpy-1.14.5.zip # Upload last.
If one of the commands breaks in the middle, which is not uncommon, you may need to selectively upload the remaining files because PyPI does not allow the same file to be uploaded twice. The source file should be uploaded last to avoid synchronization problems if pip users access the files while this is in process. Note that PyPI only allows a single source distribution, here we have chosen the zip archive.
Upload files to github
Go to https://github.com/numpy/numpy/releases, there should be a v1.14.5 tag
, click on it and hit the edit button for that tag. There are two ways to add files, using an editable text window and as binary uploads.
- Cut and paste the
release/README.md
file contents into the text window. - Upload
release/installers/numpy-1.14.5.tar.gz
as a binary file. - Upload
release/installers/numpy-1.14.5.zip
as a binary file. - Upload
release/README.rst
as a binary file. - Upload
doc/changelog/1.14.5-changelog.rst
as a binary file. - Check the pre-release button if this is a pre-releases.
- Hit the
{Publish,Update} release
button at the bottom.
Upload documents to docs.scipy.org
This step is only needed for final releases and can be skipped for pre-releases. You will also need upload permission for the document server, if you do not have permission ping Pauli Virtanen or Ralf Gommers to generate and upload the documentation. Otherwise:
$ pushd doc
$ make dist
$ make upload USERNAME=<yourname> RELEASE=v1.14.5
$ popd
If the release series is a new one, you will need to rebuild and upload the docs.scipy.org
front page:
$ cd ../docs.scipy.org
$ gvim index.rst
Note: there is discussion about moving the docs to github. This section will be updated when/if that happens.
Announce the release on scipy.org
This assumes that you have forked https://github.com/scipy/scipy.org:
$ cd ../scipy.org
$ git checkout master
$ git pull upstream master
$ git checkout -b numpy-1.14.5
$ gvim www/index.rst # edit the News section
$ git commit -a
$ git push origin HEAD
Now go to your fork and make a pull request for the branch.
Announce to mailing lists
The release should be announced on the numpy-discussion, scipy-devel, scipy-user, and python-announce-list mailing lists. Look at previous announcements for the basic template. The contributor and PR lists are the same as generated for the release notes above. If you crosspost, make sure that python-announce-list is BCC so that replies will not be sent to that list.
Post-Release Tasks
Forward port the documentation changes doc/release/1.14.5-notes.rst
, doc/changelog/1.14.5-changelog.rst
and add the release note to doc/source/release.rst
.