# \[ANN\] Introducing Upgradathon Fridays

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-introducing-upgradathon-fridays/12047>\
**Category:** Community\
**Created:** [June 28, 2018, 10:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-introducing-upgradathon-fridays/12047 "2018-06-28T22:03:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fredrikekre](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/fredrikekre/32/1688_2.png) [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 7:56am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-introducing-upgradathon-fridays/12047/3 "2018-06-29T07:56:19Z")

</div>

## And here is how you do it!

First off, the process will be _much_ simpler if you choose to drop support for Julia 0.6 on the master branch. Unless you have strong reason to create another release compatible with Julia 0.6 I would strongly recommend doing this, several packages, like `StaticArrays` and `DataStructures`, have already done so. If you need to release a 0.6 compatible bugfix release of your package you can do this from a branch later.

If your package are dependent on other packages, I suggest that you start with upgrading those first.

**Before you start, check open pull request to the package to see if someone else has already made progress!**

### 1. Obtain a copy of Julia v0.7

You can either do this by compiling from source (see the Julia README) but unless you want to wait, or are note comfortable with compiling yourself I suggest that you just download the latest nightly build from [https://julialang.org/downloads/nightlies.html](https://julialang.org/downloads/nightlies.html)

### 2. Obtain the package source code

The first step is to put the source code that you want to upgrade in some local directory. I propose you take the chance to try out the new awesome package manager for this. In the Pkg REPL we can use the `develop` command to download the source code. Enter the REPL (with `]` from the Julia REPL) and run

```julia-auto
pkg> develop Foo

```

where `Foo` is the package we want to upgrade. By default, `Pkg` will now clone the repo, and put it in `~/.julia/dev/Foo`. This is where we will make all our changes. I recommend that you make a branch before doing any edits to the source code (for example `git checkout -b julia07fixes`).

### 3. Run FemtoCleaner

The first step is to run [FemtoCleaner](https://github.com/JuliaComputing/FemtoCleaner.jl) which can do some, but not all upgrades automatically. You can use `FemtoCleaner` from GitHub (see [FemtoCleaner usage HOWTO](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/femtocleaner-usage-howto/11762)) but I will describe how to run it locally, since it is likely that you need to make other adjustments as well.

1. First we need to update the Julia requirements for the package. This is what `FemtoCleaner` looks at when deciding which code rewrites that applies. Do this by changing `julia 0.6` (or whatever is in there) to `julia 0.7-alpha`, then commit that change.

2. Next we need to install `FemtoCleaner`. It is easier to run it from Julia 0.6. To install, open a Julia v0.6 prompt and run

3. Once the installation is done it is time to clean! We can run it with the following commands

### 4. Run package tests

Now we can begin to test our package with Julia v0.7. We can test the package from the Pkg REPL:

```julia-auto
pkg> test Foo

```

which will run the tests for `Foo`. It is likely that there will be deprecation warnings, and/or test errors. Look at the output and try to figure out what’s wrong. Fix them in the source code, and run the tests again. This is an iterative process, and hopefully the warnings are less the next time you `pkg> test` the package.

### 5. Push the changes and make a PR

When you are happy with the result, simply push the changes to the remote repo (`git push -u origin julia07fixes` where you might have to replace `origin` with your own fork unless you have commit priviliges to the original repo.) When the changes are pushed, create a pull request, and wait for CI to test your changes (don’t forget to remove Julia v0.6 from the CI configurations scripts!). If tests pass; Congratulations!, if not; try looking at the build logs to see what went wrong and fix up the last changes.

### 5. Some other tips

- Line numbers from warnings and errors are not always 100% accurate, to improve the accuracy you can turn off inlining by starting julia with `julia --inline=no`.
- Sometimes the deprecation warnings does not have any clue to where the error is, which makes it very difficult to find them. To get a full stacktrace to the warning you can start julia with `julia --depwarn=error` which will turn the deprecation warnings to errors. This prints a stacktrace and makes it much simpler to find.
- Need help? Check out the Slack channel Keno mentioned in the top post, there are lots of willing people there to help you get rid of Julia 0.6!

**Happy Upgradathon!**

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-introducing-upgradathon-fridays/12047)._