Doing a matplolib release

A guide for developers who are doing a matplotlib release

  • Edit __init__.py and bump the version number

Testing

  • Make sure examples/tests/backend_driver.py runs without errors and check the output of the PNG, PDF, PS and SVG backends
  • Run unit/memleak_hawaii3.py and make sure there are no memory leaks
  • try some GUI examples, eg simple_plot.py with GTKAgg, TkAgg, etc...
  • remove font cache and tex cache from .matplotlib and test with and without cache on some example script

Packaging

  • Make sure the MANIFEST.in us up to date and remove MANIFEST so it will be rebuilt by MANIFEST.in
  • run svn-clean from in the mpl svn directory before building the sdist
  • unpack the sdist and make sure you can build from that directory
  • Use setup.cfg to set the default backends. For windows and OSX, the default backend should be TkAgg.
  • on windows, unix2dos the rc file

Uploading

  • Post the win32 and OS-X binaries for testing and make a request on matplotlib-devel for testing. Pester us if we don’t respond

  • ftp the source and binaries to the anonymous FTP site:

    mpl> svn-clean
    mpl> python setup.py sdist
    mpl> cd dist/
    dist> sftp jdh2358@frs.sourceforge.net
    Connecting to frs.sourceforge.net...
    sftp> cd uploads
    sftp> ls
    sftp> lls
    matplotlib-0.98.2.tar.gz
    sftp> put matplotlib-0.98.2.tar.gz
    Uploading matplotlib-0.98.2.tar.gz to /incoming/j/jd/jdh2358/uploads/matplotlib-0.98.2.tar.gz
  • go https://sourceforge.net/project/admin/?group_id=80706 and do a file release. Click on the “Admin” tab to log in as an admin, and then the “File Releases” tab. Go to the bottom and click “add release” and enter the package name but not the version number in the “Package Name” box. You will then be prompted for the “New release name” at which point you can add the version number, eg somepackage-0.1 and click “Create this release”.

    You will then be taken to a fairly self explanatory page where you can enter the Change notes, the release notes, and select which packages from the incoming ftp archive you want to include in this release. For each binary, you will need to select the platform and file type, and when you are done you click on the “notify users who are monitoring this package link”

Announcing

Announce the release on matplotlib-announce, matplotlib-users and matplotlib-devel. Include a summary of highlights from the CHANGELOG and/or post the whole CHANGELOG since the last release.