ORCA Releases

Every so often a version of ORCA is frozen and a release made. Essentially two things happen at this time:

1. The code is given a CVS tag such that the exact code for this release can always be recovered from the repository
2. A central installation of all the libraries is made, so that users do not have to make their own libraries for code that they do not wish to change.

The ORCA versions are numbered in a three digit scheme as in ORCA_2_1_3.

• The first digit (2) indicates the major release number. A major release happens currently every 3-4 months and, hopefully, represents a significant increase in functionality.
• The second digit (1) indicates a minor release number. Typically one in which some interfaces have changed, probably you have to recompile your libraries to use this.
• The third digit (3) indicates a "bug-fix" release. No interfaces were changed but bugs were (hopefully) fixed

The major and minor releases are actually released in a phased way. This allows (requires) dependent code packages to be tested against the code they depend on. (for example if CARF changes, all the other packages that use CARF have to be released after they have been checked against the new CARF version). In this phased release process we make intermediate releases called "prereleasexxx" to enable developers to test their code. Prereleases have no guaranteed lifetime, and certainly no guaranteed functionality...

The command scram list gives you a list of all the releases currently in the central installation. A typical output would be:
Installed Projects
------------------
|Project Name | Project Version |
----------------------------------
ORCA ORCA_2_0_0
--> file:/afs/cern.ch/cms/Releases/ORCA/prerelease2_7/.SCRAM/InstallFile

ORCA ORCA_2_0_1
--> file:/afs/cern.ch/cms/Releases/ORCA/ORCA_ORCA_2/ORCA_ORCA_2_0_1/.SCRAM/InstallFile

ORCA ORCA_2_0_2
--> file:/afs/cern.ch/cms/Releases/ORCA/ORCA_ORCA_2/ORCA_ORCA_2_0_2/.SCRAM/InstallFile

ORCA ORCA_2_1_0
--> file:/afs/cern.ch/cms/Releases/ORCA/ORCA_ORCA_2/ORCA_ORCA_2_1_0/.SCRAM/InstallFile

ORCA ORCA_3_0_0
--> file:/afs/cern.ch/cms/Releases/ORCA/ORCA_3/ORCA_3_0_0/.SCRAM/InstallFile

ORCA ORCA_3_0_1
--> file:/afs/cern.ch/cms/Releases/ORCA/ORCA_3/ORCA_3_0_1/.SCRAM/InstallFile

IGUANA V1_0_0
--> file:/afs/cern.ch/cms/Releases/IGUANA/IGUANA_V1_0_0/.SCRAM/InstallFile

ORCA ORCA_3_0_3
--> file:/afs/cern.ch/cms/Releases/ORCA/ORCA_3/ORCA_3_0_3/.SCRAM/InstallFile