zephyr/doc/guides/west/release-notes.rst

West Release Notes
##################

v0.7.0
******

The main user-visible feature in west 0.7 is the :ref:`west-manifest-import`
feature. This allows users to load west manifest data from multiple different
files, resolving the results into a single logical manifest.

Additional user-visible changes:

- The idea of a "west installation" has been renamed to "west workspace" in
  this documentation and in the west API documentation. The new term seems to
  be easier for most people to work with than the old one.
- West manifests now support a :ref:`schema version
  <west-manifest-schema-version>`.
- The "west config" command can now be run outside of a workspace, e.g.
  to run ``west config --global section.key value`` to set a configuration
  option's value globally.
- There is a new :ref:`west topdir <west-multi-repo-misc>` command, which
  prints the root directory of the current west workspace.
- The ``west -vv init`` command now prints the git operations being performed,
  and their results.
- The restriction that no project can be named "manifest" is now enforced; the
  name "manifest" is reserved for the manifest repository, and is usable as
  such in commands like ``west list manifest``, instead of ``west list
  path-to-manifest-repository`` being the only way to say that
- It's no longer an error if there is no project named "zephyr". This is
  part of an effort to make west generally usable for non-Zephyr use cases.
- Various bug fixes.

The developer-visible changes to the :ref:`west-apis` are:

- west.build and west.cmake: deprecated; this is Zephyr-specific functionality
  and should never have been part of west. Since Zephyr v1.14 LTS relies on it,
  it will continue to be included in the distribution, but will be removed
  when that version of Zephyr is obsoleted.
- west.commands:

  - WestCommand.requires_installation: deprecated; use requires_workspace instead
  - WestCommand.requires_workspace: new
  - WestCommand.has_manifest: new
  - WestCommand.manifest: this is now settable
- west.configuration: callers can now identify the workspace directory
  when reading and writing configuration files
- west.log:

  - msg(): new
- west.manifest:

  - The module now uses the standard logging module instead of west.log
  - QUAL_REFS_WEST: new
  - SCHEMA_VERSION: new
  - Defaults: removed
  - Manifest.as_dict(): new
  - Manifest.as_frozen_yaml(): new
  - Manifest.as_yaml(): new
  - Manifest.from_file() and from_data(): these factory methods are more
    flexible to use and less reliant on global state
  - Manifest.validate(): new
  - ManifestImportFailed: new
  - ManifestProject: semi-deprecated and will likely be removed later.
  - Project: the constructor now takes a topdir argument
  - Project.format() and its callers are removed. Use f-strings instead.
  - Project.name_and_path: new
  - Project.remote_name: new
  - Project.sha() now captures stderr
  - Remote: removed

West now requires Python 3.6 or later. Additionally, some features may rely on
Python dictionaries being insertion-ordered; this is only an implementation
detail in CPython 3.6, but is is part of the language specification as of
Python 3.7.

v0.6.3
******

This point release fixes an error in the behavior of the deprecated
``west.cmake`` module.

v0.6.2
******

This point release fixes an error in the behavior of ``west
update --fetch=smart``, introduced in v0.6.1.

All v0.6.1 users must upgrade.

v0.6.1
******

.. warning::

   Do not use this point release. Make sure to use v0.6.2 instead.

The user-visible features in this point release are:

- The `west update <west-multi-repo-cmds>` command has a new ``--fetch``
  command line flag and ``update.fetch`` :ref:`configuration option
  <west-config>`. The default value, "smart", skips fetching SHAs and tags
  which are available locally.
- Better and more consistent error-handling in the ``west diff``, ``west
  status``, ``west forall``, and ``west update`` commands. Each of these
  commands can operate on multiple projects; if a subprocess related to one
  project fails, these commands now continue to operate on the rest of the
  projects. All of them also now report a nonzero error code from the west
  process if any of these subprocesses fails (this was previously not true of
  ``west forall`` in particular).
- The :ref:`west manifest <west-multi-repo-misc>` command also handles errors
  better.
- The :ref:`west list <west-multi-repo-misc>` command now works even when the
  projects are not cloned, as long as its format string only requires
  information which can be read from the manifest file. It still fails if the
  format string requires data stored in the project repository, e.g. if it
  includes the ``{sha}`` format string key.
- Commands and options which operate on git revisions now accept abbreviated
  SHAs. For example, ``west init --mr SHA_PREFIX`` now works. Previously, the
  ``--mr`` argument needed to be the entire 40 character SHA if it wasn't a
  branch or a tag.

The developer-visible changes to the :ref:`west-apis` are:

- west.log.banner(): new
- west.log.small_banner(): new
- west.manifest.Manifest.get_projects(): new
- west.manifest.Project.is_cloned(): new
- west.commands.WestCommand instances can now access the parsed
  Manifest object via a new self.manifest property during the
  do_run() call. If read, it returns the Manifest object or
  aborts the command if it could not be parsed.
- west.manifest.Project.git() now has a capture_stderr kwarg


v0.6.0
******

- No separate bootstrapper

  In west v0.5.x, the program was split into two components, a bootstrapper and
  a per-installation clone. See `Multiple Repository Management in the v1.14
  documentation`_ for more details.

  This is similar to how Google's Repo tool works, and lets west iterate quickly
  at first. It caused confusion, however, and west is now stable enough to be
  distributed entirely as one piece via PyPI.

  From v0.6.x onwards, all of the core west commands and helper classes are
  part of the west package distributed via PyPI. This eliminates complexity
  and makes it possible to import west modules from anywhere in the system,
  not just extension commands.
- The ``selfupdate`` command still exists for backwards compatibility, but
  now simply exits after printing an error message.
- Manifest syntax changes

  - A west manifest file's ``projects`` elements can now specify their fetch
    URLs directly, like so:

    .. code-block:: yaml

       manifest:
         projects:
           - name: example-project-name
             url: https://github.com/example/example-project

    Project elements with ``url`` attributes set in this way may not also have
    ``remote`` attributes.
  - Project names must be unique: this restriction is needed to support future
    work, but was not possible in west v0.5.x because distinct projects may
    have URLs with the same final pathname component, like so:

    .. code-block:: yaml

       manifest:
         remotes:
           - name: remote-1
             url-base: https://github.com/remote-1
           - name: remote-2
             url-base: https://github.com/remote-2
         projects:
           - name: project
             remote: remote-1
             path: remote-1-project
           - name: project
             remote: remote-2
             path: remote-2-project

    These manifests can now be written with projects that use ``url``
    instead of ``remote``, like so:

    .. code-block:: yaml

       manifest:
         projects:
           - name: remote-1-project
             url: https://github.com/remote-1/project
           - name: remote-2-project
             url: https://github.com/remote-2/project

- The ``west list`` command now supports a ``{sha}`` format string key

- The default format string for ``west list`` was changed to ``"{name:12}
  {path:28} {revision:40} {url}"``.

- The command ``west manifest --validate`` can now be run to load and validate
  the current manifest file, among other error-handling fixes related to
  manifest parsing.

- Incompatible API changes were made to west's APIs. Further changes are
  expected until API stability is declared in west v1.0.

  - The ``west.manifest.Project`` constructor's ``remote`` and ``defaults``
    positional arguments are now kwargs. A new ``url`` kwarg was also added; if
    given, the ``Project`` URL is set to that value, and the ``remote`` kwarg
    is ignored.

  - ``west.manifest.MANIFEST_SECTIONS`` was removed. There is only one section
    now, namely ``manifest``. The *sections* kwargs in the
    ``west.manifest.Manifest`` factory methods and constructor were also
    removed.

  - The ``west.manifest.SpecialProject`` class was removed. Use
    ``west.manifest.ManifestProject`` instead.


v0.5.x
******

West v0.5.x is the first version used widely by the Zephyr Project as part of
its v1.14 Long-Term Support (LTS) release. The `west v0.5.x documentation`_ is
available as part of the Zephyr's v1.14 documentation.

West's main features in v0.5.x are:

- Multiple repository management using Git repositories, including self-update
  of west itself
- Hierarchical configuration files
- Extension commands

Versions Before v0.5.x
**********************

Tags in the west repository before v0.5.x are prototypes which are of
historical interest only.

.. _Multiple Repository Management in the v1.14 documentation:
   https://docs.zephyrproject.org/1.14.0/guides/west/repo-tool.html

.. _west v0.5.x documentation:
   https://docs.zephyrproject.org/1.14.0/guides/west/index.html