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1 Reltool Release Notes

This document describes the changes made to the Reltool system from version to version. The intention of this document is to list all incompatibilities as well as all enhancements and bugfixes for every release of Reltool. Each release of Reltool thus constitutes one section in this document. The title of each section is the version number of Reltool.

  • Add possibility to strip specific chunks from beam files included in a release. Before this change it was only possible to strip all chunks from the beam files.

    Own Id: OTP-18230 Aux Id: PR-5936

  • Runtime dependencies have been updated.

    Own Id: OTP-18350

  • Support for the experimental code archives feature has been removed from reltool.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-18488 Aux Id: PR-6836

  • The implementation has been fixed to use proc_lib:init_fail/2,3 where appropriate, instead of proc_lib:init_ack/1,2.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-18490 Aux Id: OTP-18471, GH-6339, PR-6843

  • Fixed a bug that would cause analysis to crash.

    Own Id: OTP-18372 Aux Id: GH-6580

  • Recognize new key 'optional_applications' in application resource files.

    Own Id: OTP-17189 Aux Id: PR-2675

  • Removed timestamps from files generated by sasl and reltool to enable deterministic builds.

    Own Id: OTP-17292 Aux Id: PR-4685, PR-4684

  • A new element, Opts, can now be included in a rel tuple in the reltool release specific configuration format: {rel, Name, Vsn, RelApps, Opts}.

    This supports the use of {rel, Name, Vsn, RelApps, [{load_dot_erlang, false}]} to prevent the boot script from running the .erlang file.

    The incompatibilities are as follows:

    * The return from reltool:get_config/1 and reltool:get_config/3 includes the new rel tuple for all releases where the load_dot_erlang option is set to false.
    * The return from reltool:get_config/3 includes the new rel tuple for ALL releases if the InclDefs parameter is set to true.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-15571

  • Reltool would earlier erroneously split paths like "c:\foo" into ["c","\foo"] when reading the $ERL_LIBS variable on windows. This is now corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-15454

  • Improved documentation.

    Own Id: OTP-15190

  • Calls to erlang:get_stacktrace() are removed.

    Own Id: OTP-14861

  • Files generated by release_handler and reltool, which might contain Unicode characters, are now encoded as UTF-8 and written with format "~tp" or "~ts". If the file is to be read by file:consult/1, an encoding comment is added.

    Own Id: OTP-14463

  • The User's Guide examples are updated after removal of support for Dets files created with Erlang/OTP R7 and earlier.

    Own Id: OTP-14422 Aux Id: OTP-13830

  • Fixed xml issues in old release notes

    Own Id: OTP-14269

  • Dependencies specified in .app files would earlier only be followed for applications that are included in a 'rel' spec in the reltool config. For other applications, only xref would decide the dependencies.

    Some dependency chains would even be missed for applications that are included in a 'rel' spec in the reltool config. E.g.

    • Application x has y as included application, and y in turn has z as included application. Then z is not included.
    • Application x has y in its 'applications' tag in the .app file, and y in turn has z as included application. Then z is not included.

    These bugs are now corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-11993

  • Modify the code as motivated by a change of the Erlang Parser (undefined is no longer automatically inserted to the type of record fields without an initializer).

    Own Id: OTP-13033 Aux Id: OTP-12719

  • Change license text from Erlang Public License to Apache Public License v2

    Own Id: OTP-12845

  • Fixed a minor typo in an error message from reltool_server.

    Own Id: OTP-11977

  • When adding a regexp to a filter in reltool using {add,Regexp}, and the existing regexp was undefined, reltool would crash since it got an improper list. This has been corrected. (Thanks to Håkan Mattsson)

    Own Id: OTP-11591

  • Adapted reltool test server to common test usage of tc_status. (Note that this code is not used by OTP daily test runs.) (Thanks to Håkan Mattsson)

    Own Id: OTP-11592

  • Application upgrade (appup) files are corrected for the following applications:

    asn1, common_test, compiler, crypto, debugger, dialyzer, edoc, eldap, erl_docgen, et, eunit, gs, hipe, inets, observer, odbc, os_mon, otp_mibs, parsetools, percept, public_key, reltool, runtime_tools, ssh, syntax_tools, test_server, tools, typer, webtool, wx, xmerl

    A new test utility for testing appup files is added to test_server. This is now used by most applications in OTP.

    (Thanks to Tobias Schlager)

    Own Id: OTP-11744

  • The encoding of the notes.xml file has been changed from latin1 to utf-8 to avoid future merge problems.

    Own Id: OTP-11310

  • Fix receive support in erl_eval with a BEAM module. Thanks to Anthony Ramine.

    Own Id: OTP-11137

  • Reltool used to fail if an application was mentioned in the config file which was not found in the file system, even if the application was explicitly excluded in the config. This has been changed and will only produce a warning. If the application is not explicitly excluded it will still cause reltool to fail. Thanks to Håkan Mattsson!

    Own Id: OTP-10988

  • Fix possibly "not owner" error while file copy with reltool. Thanks to Alexey Saltanov.

    Own Id: OTP-11099

  • Some updates are made to reltool for handling unicode.

    Own Id: OTP-10781

    • If incl_cond was set to derived on module level, then reltool_server would crash with a case_clause. This has been corrected. incl_cond on module level now overwrites mod_cond on app or sys level as described in the documentation.
    • If a rel spec in the reltool config does not contain all applications that are listed as {applications,Applications} in a .app file, then these applications are automatically added when creating the .rel file. For 'included_applications', the behaviour was not the same. I.e. if a rel spec in the reltool config did not contain all applications that are listed as {included_applications,InclApplications} in a .app file, then reltool would fail with reason "Undefined applications" when creating the .rel file. This has been corrected, so both applications and included_applications are now automatically added if not already in the rel spec.
    • The rel specification now dictates the order in which included and used applications (specified in the .app file as included_applications and applications respectively) are loaded/started by the boot file. If the applications are not specified in the rel spec, then the order from the .app file is used. This was a bug earlier reported on systools, and is now also implemented in reltool.
    • Instead of only looking at the directory name, reltool now first looks for a .app file in order to figure out the name of an application.

    Own Id: OTP-10012 Aux Id: kunagi-171 [82]

  • Some examples overflowing the width of PDF pages have been corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-10665

  • A new sys level configuration parameter {excl_lib,otp_root} is added. When this is set, the target system will not contain anything from $OTP_ROOT. It will only contain a releases directory with rel, script and boot files, and a lib directory with applications found outside of $OTP_ROOT (i.e. "your own" applications).

    Own Id: OTP-9743

  • Miscellaneous corrections:
    • Start of reltool GUI would sometimes crash with a badmatch in reltool_sys_win:do_init. This has been corrected.
    • Minor corrections of documentation and type specifications of app() and mod() are done.
    • If a module name is duplicated in an app file reltool would return an error. This is now changed to a warning.
    • Reltool would earlier not necessarily keep the order of applications as listed in the rel specification in the configuration. This has been corrected.
    • Reltool would earlier set the default for included applications to an empty list if it was not set in the rel specification in the configuration. This was correct according to sasl/systools documentation, but not according to sasl/systools implementation. We decided to change the documentation and reltool to use the value of included_applications from the .app file as default instead of the empty list, since this seems more intuitive and since systools always has done the same.
    • The value of included applications in the rel specification in the configuration did not overwrite included_applications in the .app file if it was set to an empty list. This has been corrected.
    • Reltool would earlier add load instructions in the script/boot files for ALL modules in the ebin directory of an application even if mod_cond was set to app (include only modules listed in the .app file). This has been corrected.
    • Reltool would earlier add start instructions in the script/boot file for included applications. This has been corrected - included applications shall only be loaded since the including application is responsible for starting them.
    • Status bar now indicates that reltool is working (Processing libraries...) for all configuration changes, and when generating target system.
    • Title of dependencies column in app and mod window is changed from "Modules used by others" to "Modules using this".

    Own Id: OTP-9792

  • Configuration changes via the GUI had a few bugs related to error handling, rollback and undo. A major re-write of the reltool_server has been done in order to align the way reltool_server updates and uses its state and tables for all different kinds of configuration change.

    All configuration changes (except undo) now cause a re-read of the file system, meaning that if something has changed in the file system it will be reflected in the result of the configuration change.

    When loading a new configuration file via the GUI, the old configuration is now completely scratched, and only the new is valid.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-9794

  • Some bug fixes related to the handling of escripts:

    • Reltool could not handle escripts with inlined applications. This has been corrected. Inlined applications will be visible in the GUI, but not possible to include/exclude separately.
    • Loading a config which contains an escript via the GUI menu did not produce the same result as when using the same configuration at reltool start. Paths, version and label could differ. This has been corrected.
    • Loading config with same escript (source) twice caused reltool to add same module twice. This has been corrected.
    • Loading config with same escript (inlined beam) twice caused reltool to fail saying module is included by two different applications. This has been corrected.
    • Loading config which in addition to an existing escript also adds another escript, for which the name sorts before the existing one, would cause reltool to fail saying "Application name clash". This has been corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-9968

  • Reltool would sometimes generate a .app file containing {start_phases,undefined}, which would cause an exception in systools at parse time. This has been corrected so reltool now omits the start_phases entry if the value is undefined. (Thanks to Juan Jose Comellas)

    In order to align with reltool, sasl will also omit start_phases entries with value undefined in .script files.

    Own Id: OTP-10003

  • A warning list is added to the sys window of the reltool GUI. This list will continuously show all warnings produced by the current configuration.

    Own Id: OTP-9967

  • As a way of specifying one specific version of an application, the following configuration parameter is added on application level:

    {lib_dir,Dir}, Dir = string()

    This can be useful if the parent directory of the application directory is not suitable to use as a lib dir on system level.

    Own Id: OTP-9977

  • Added recommendation about RootDir parameter to reltool:eval_target_spec/3.

    Own Id: OTP-9742

  • If a module was duplicated in the library directories visible to reltool, and the configuration did not point out which file to use, then reltool:start would always fail. A pop-up is added which asks if you want to continue with a safe and minimal configuration.

    Own Id: OTP-9383

  • wx would sometimes crash due to an empty radiobox on the 'releases' tab of the system window. This radiobox is removed, and replaced by a listbox which will always contain at least kernel and stdlib applications.

    Own Id: OTP-9384

  • The system level option app_files is documented to allow the values keep | strip | all, but it only allowed keep. This is corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-9135

  • Allow the same module name in multiple applications visible to reltool, as long as all but one of the applications/modules are explicitly excluded. (Thanks to Andrew Gopienko and Jay Nelson)

    Own Id: OTP-9229

  • The reltool module contained two seriously erroneous specs which caused bogus warnings when dialyzing reltool and some correct code of users. These were fixed (specs for start_link/1 and eval_server/3)

    - Code cleanups and simplifications - Fix a bug in the calculation of circular dependencies - Eliminate two dialyzer warnings - Put files alphabetically

    Own Id: OTP-9120

  • Added function zip:foldl/3 to iterate over zip archives.

    Added functions to create and extract escripts. See escript:create/2 and escript:extract/2.

    The undocumented function escript:foldl/3 has been removed. The same functionality can be achieved with the more flexible functions escript:extract/2 and zip:foldl/3.

    Record fields has been annotated with type info. Source files as been adapted to fit within 80 chars and trailing whitespace has been removed.

    Own Id: OTP-8521

  • A new escript, called reltool, has been introduced in order to simplify the usage of the reltool application from makefiles.

    The handling of applications included in releases has been improved. Applications that are required to be started before other applications in a release are now automatically included in the release. The Kernel and STDLIB applications are always included as they are mandatory.

    Applications that are (explicitly or implicitly) included in a release are now automatically included as if they were explicitly included with the incl_cond flag.

    A new embedded_app_type option has been introduced. It is intended to be used for embedded systems where all included applications must be loaded from the boot script, as these systems does not utilize dynamic code loading. If embedded_app_type is set to something else than undefined, all included applications will be included in both the release as well as in the boot script. If the profile is embedded the embedded_app_type option defaults to load.

    A new function called reltool:get_status/1 has been introduced. It returns status about the configuration in the server.

    The API functions that may take PidOrOptions as input and actually gets Options does now print out warnings.

    The internal error handling has been improved. For example {error,Reason} is always returned in case of errors even when the server dies.

    app and appup files has been added as well as a corresponding test suite.

    Various cleanups has been made in the code and in the documentation.

    Own Id: OTP-8590

  • Removed spurious documentation files.

    Own Id: OTP-8057

  • The documentation is now built with open source tools (xsltproc and fop) that exists on most platforms. One visible change is that the HTML frames are removed.

    Own Id: OTP-8254

  • In the new release of Reltool (0.5) there is a severe bug that may cause your source files to be deleted. The bug is triggered when you generate a target system WITH archive files AND your library directories are given with absolute paths. (Library directories are given with the ERL_LIBS environment variable or with the lib_dirs configuration parameter.)

    Own Id: OTP-8199

  • The tool is still experimental. Feedback is appreciated.

    Major improvements of the target system generation has been performed. Now it is possible to generate a relocatable target system that does not need to be re-installed if it is moved to a new location. Archive files are automatically generated. A detailed specification of the target system can be generated without actually creating the target system. Relocatable escripts are put in the bin directory of the target system. etc. etc.

    Some new functions has been introduced in the reltool module: start/1, start_link/1, get_config/3, get_target_spec/1 and eval_target_spec/3.

    Some new configuration parameters has been introduced: profile, incl_sys_filters, excl_sys_filters, incl_app_filters, excl_app_filters, incl_archive_filters, excl_archive_filters, archive_opts, escript and relocatable.

    Some parameters have been obsoleted and given new semantics: incl_erts_dirs (incl_sys_filters), excl_erts_dirs (excl_sys_filters), incl_app_dirs (incl_app_filters), excl_app_dirs (excl_app_filters) and escripts (escript).

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-7949

  • The application is experimental. Feedback is appreciated.

  • The tool crashed when rel, script and boot files were generated via the GUI. This has been fixed.

    Own Id: OTP-7999

  • Minor GUI fixes

    Own Id: OTP-7840

This is the first (experimental) release of Reltool.

  • The application is experimental.

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Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.