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---
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short-description: Creating releases
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...
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# Creating releases
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In addition to development, almost all projects provide periodical
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source releases. These are standalone packages (usually either in
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tar or zip format) of the source code. They do not contain any
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revision control metadata, only the source code. Meson provides
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a simple way of generating these, with the `meson dist` command.
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Meson provides a simple way of generating these. It consists of a
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single command *(available since 0.52.0)*:
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```sh
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meson dist
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```
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or alternatively (on older Meson versions with `ninja` backend):
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```sh
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ninja dist
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```
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This creates a file called `projectname-version.tar.xz` in the build
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tree subdirectory `meson-dist`. This archive contains the full
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contents of the latest commit in revision control including all the
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submodules (recursively). All revision control metadata is removed.
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Meson then takes this archive and tests that it works by doing a full
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`compile` + `test` + `install` cycle. If all these pass, Meson will
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then create a `SHA-256` checksum file next to the archive.
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## Autotools dist VS Meson dist
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Meson behaviour is different from Autotools. The Autotools "dist"
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target packages up the current source tree. Meson packages the latest
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revision control commit. The reason for this is that it prevents
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developers from doing accidental releases where the distributed
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archive does not match any commit in revision control (especially the
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one tagged for the release).
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## Include subprojects in your release
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The `meson dist` command has `--include-subprojects` command line
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option. When enabled, the source tree of all subprojects used by the
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current build will also be included in the final tarball. This is
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useful to distribute self contained tarball that can be built offline
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(i.e. `--wrap-mode=nodownload`).
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## Skip build and test with `--no-tests`
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The `meson dist` command has a `--no-tests` option to skip build and
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tests steps of generated packages. It can be used to not waste time
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for example when done in CI that already does its own testing.
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So with `--no-tests` you can tell Meson "Do not build and test generated
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packages.".
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## Release a subproject separately
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*Since 0.57.0* the `meson dist` command can now create a distribution tarball
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for a subproject in the same git repository as the main project. This can be
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useful if parts of the project (e.g. libraries) can be built and distributed
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separately. In that case they can be moved into `subprojects/mysub` and running
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`meson dist` in that directory will now create a tarball containing only the
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source code from that subdir and not the rest of the main project or other
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subprojects.
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For example:
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```sh
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git clone https://github.com/myproject
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cd myproject/subprojects/mysubproject
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meson builddir
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meson dist -C builddir
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```
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This produces `builddir/meson-dist/mysubproject-1.0.tar.xz` tarball.
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