Noting that Graeme is hammering on about expunging GTK1 support, and noting that people who need GTK1 might find themselves having to build an older version of Lazarus possibly using an older version of FPC:

a) How can I obtain (say) the most recently fixed version of 0.9.26 from svn? I can see how to do this by release number but not by version, and I notice that the snapshots at http://www.hu.freepascal.org/lazarus/ have (for example) both 0.9.28.3-25855 and 0.9.29-25855 implying that there isn't a one-to-one mapping between release and version numbers.

b) Having found a given version of the IDE source, how can I determine the optimum FPC version to compile it, and possibly the expected versions of system libraries?

Apologies for asking about something that is probably an SVN issue or might be documented somewhere in the sources, but this bit me a couple of days ago where I was trying to compile code using 0.9.28-3 and finding that it misbehaved in different ways depending on whether it was linked with GTK v1 or v2. I tried moving to 0.9.29 which wouldn't compile GTK1, in the end I fell back to 0.9.26 which fortunately I still had a copy of locally.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

or v2. I tried moving to 0.9.29 which wouldn't compile GTK1, in the end I fell back to 0.9.26 which fortunately I still had a copy of locally.

I don't think any GTK1 specific bugs have been fixed it months (if not a year plus). The only things GTK1 has seen in the last few months is fixing regression bugs just to make it compile again (but that doesn't even guarantee it can run).

So I would suggest staying with 0.9.26 and whatever version of FPC it used at the time (I'm sure the wiki or Lazarus release notes will tell you that). At least you know it works and can continue maintaining your GTK1 apps with that version of Lazarus and LCL. Moving to anything newer and you will be in for a headache.

You can also checkout tags/lazarus_0_9_26_2 branch in the repository, but then you need to find the FPC version it can compile with - which will probably be the save version used for 0.9.26.

I can sympathise with both sides of the argument. Obviously I'm just using this as an example.

In general I've got a policy of trying to match up machine age with operating system, development tools and so on. I ceased enjoying those headaches decades ago :-)

You can also checkout tags/lazarus_0_9_26_2 branch in the repository,

For the record, can anybody give examples of how to find the version numbers and then get the appropriate one? My experience of svn is about limited to the co command, how do I look at the available tags?

but then you need to find the FPC version it can compile with - which will probably be the save version used for 0.9.26.

A quick grep doesn't show this information in any files near the root of a source archive. Is there something else available via svn?

I know that somebody else tried asking a comparable question relating to FPC (Toan Pham on 26th May), so I don't think I'm the only person who doesn't understand this area.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

My experience of svn is about limited to the co command, how do I look at the available tags?

Maybe this helps
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.4/svn.tour.revs.specifiers.html

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

For the record, can anybody give examples of how to find the version numbers and then get the appropriate one? My experience of svn is about limited to the co command, how do I look at the available tags?

Just open http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazarus in a webbrowser to see which paths (of stable versions/branches) exists.

In the top of ../branches/fixes_0_9_26/lcl/allunits.pp is a line "{$fatal Lazarus requires at least FPC 2.2.0}", but I think later versions will also do it.

Michael Schneider wrote

Maybe this helps http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.4/svn.tour.revs.specifiers.html

Yes, I read that two nights ago. But it says nothing about how you'd get e.g. the most recently fixed 0.9.26.

However knowing "tags" Google directs me to
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/ch04s06.html hence I find that

$ svn ls http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazarus/tags

gives me a listing of tagged versions from lazarus_0_9_4/ through lazarus_0_9_28_2/, and similarly

svn ls http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/fpc/tags/

gives me a listing of tagged FPC sources from release_2_0_0/ through release_2_4_0/.

The important point, implied by Graeme but made explicit by the book, is that a tag is in effect a complete release (i.e. comparable with trunk).

If anybody thinks that I'm misunderstanding something please correct me.

I can see that some of the Lazarus installer files cite specific FPC versions, but I still can't see anything unambiguous where the developers say "we're assuming FPC x.y.z". I see there's a minimum version test in lcl/alllclunits.pp hence

$ svn cat
http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazarus/tags/lazarus_0_9_26_2/lcl/alllclunits.pp |grep 'At least'

which appears to return a sensible result as far back as 0.9.10. Vincent, I see your name in this: are you happy with my conclusions?

shoKwave wrote

Just open http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazarus in a webbrowser

Thanks, I'd forgotten that would work.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

that a tag is in effect a complete release (i.e. comparable with trunk). If anybody thinks that I'm misunderstanding something please correct me.

SubVersion treats tags just like any other branch. So if you want the lastest revision in the 0.9.26.2 tag, simply check it out via:

svn co .....tags/lazarus_0_9_26_2/ 0.9.26_fixes

That will checkout the latest fixes revision of release 0.9.26 into a '0.9.26_fixes' directory for you.

I suggest TortoiseSVN for Windows, it has a nice Explorer integration.

DoDi

Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote

I suggest TortoiseSVN for Windows, it has a nice Explorer integration.

Which would be fine if we were running Windows. But Windows is, quite frankly, not where we want to go today :-)