Documenting Changes

Motivation and goals

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Spreading information about important Core changes has been a problematic issue ever since. With the switch to the new release cycle with version 7 of the TYPO3 CMS Core this situation should be improved.

A dedicated changelog of important changes is established to inform users, developers and other Core related teams or projects:

  • Overview for documentation team which changes trigger documentation changes.
  • Overview for Release Managers and other "Spread the word" related works on important changes.
  • Hints for extension developers, integrators and project developers whose own code areas may need adjustments on Core updates.
  • Standardized format for easy usage in scripts like a Core migration or release notes system.

Different changelog types

A changelog handles one of these change types:

Breaking change
A patch moved or removed a specific part of Core functionality that may break extensions if they use this part. Removal of deprecated code or an interface change are good examples of this type.
Deprecation
A patch deprecates a certain Core functionality for a planned removal.
Feature
A patch adds new functionality.
Important
Any other important message which may require manual action.

Casual bug fixes do not need changelog files, but every change that may be of special interest for extension developers or documentation writers should receive an entry. The changelog file must be provided as part of the patch that introduces the change.

Location

New changelog files are added to the directory of the minor version that they will be released in, for example typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/12.1 directory.

This way it can be easily seen which change has been introduced in which released TYPO3 version.

In rare cases, patches worth a changelog file need to be backported to stable LTS and / or old stable LTS versions. Those should be put into a different directory, depending on target LTS versions. We'll explain this by example:

Suppose Core is currently developing v12, a first 12.0 has been released, so the Git branch main will become version 12.1.0 with the next sprint release. So new Changelog entries will be saved in folder typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/12.0. The stable LTS version is currently 11.5.3, so the Git branch 11.5 will become version 11.5.4 with the next stable LTS patch level release. The old stable LTS version is currently 10.4.21, so the Git branch 10.4 will become version 10.4.22 with next old stable LTS patch level release.

Example scenarios:

  • A patch is only added to main: Put the .rst file into the typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/12.1 directory in the main branch. The Core team will re-review files in this directory shortly before the 12.1 release.
  • A patch is not only added to main, but also backported to v11: Put the .rst file into the typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/11.5.x directory in the main branch. The backport to 11.5 branch includes the changelog file into 11.5.x directory, too. Users upgrading to latest patch level release of 11.5 will then see the new file in the 11.5.x directory.

  • A patch is not only added to main, but backported to v11 and v10: Put the .rst file into typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/11.5.x and a duplicate into typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/10.4.x directories in the main branch. The backport to the 11.5 branch has the two identical files in both directories, too. The 10.4 branch backport contains only the :file:typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/10.4.x, the 11.5.x` directory does not exist in the version 10 branch.

    Users upgrading to latest 10.4 patch level or the latest 11.5 patch level will then see the new file in 11.5.x directory or in 10.4.x directory, respectively.

The main goal of this approach is to have a consistent state of changelog file across branches. Changelog files are added to the oldest release branch where a change has been backported to, thus basically the first TYPO3 version where a change is visible. Changelog files from older releases are never deleted in younger branches.

They are still rendered in Admin Tools > Upgrade > View Upgrade Documentation and are connected to the extension scanner at Admin Tools > Upgrade > View Upgrade Documentation. In our example above, the main branch contains all changelog files for TYPO3 v12, v11 and v10, the branch 11.5 contains all files for TYPO3 v11 and v10, and the branch 10.4 contains all v10 files.

Furthermore, documentation files from older releases should be identical in all branches. If a patch improves some documentation file from a v10 directory, this change should be put into all branches: main, 11.5 and 10.4 for consistency. The Core Team will check for differences of files between branches occasionally and will align them in case they diverged.

Filename convention

<type>-<forgeIssueNumber>-<UpperCamelCaseDescription>.rst
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For example

Deprecation-95800-GeneratingPublicURLForPrivateAssetFiles.rst
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File content

Like other documentation, changelog files are done in ReST, see ReST Cheat sheet: Using reStructuredText in TYPO3 Documentation for more details.

  • All types contain a "Description" section that should give a short summary on which Core part was affected by the change.
  • All types contain an "Impact" section that describes the possible impact of a change. An example is "Frontend output may change", "Configuration of xy is easier" or "Backend will throw a fatal error".
  • Types "Deprecation" and "Breaking" contain an "Affected installations" section that describes when and if a TYPO3 instance is affected by a change. Example: "Extension xy is in use" or "TypoScript functionality xy is used" or "System is based on PHP 8.2".
  • Types "Deprecation" and "Breaking" contain a "Migration" section to describe best practices on how to cope with a specific change.
  • All types contain a list of tags, see below.

Tagging

To provide the possibility to filter ReST files by topics, it is mandatory to equip every .rst file with at least two tags. As a rule of thumb a file should have no more than five tags. Please limit yourself to the list provided below. If you are in dearly need to introduce a new tag, you must also add it to the list (and explain it) in this file as a reference for everyone.

The tag list should be located at the end of a ReST file prefixed with the index keyword, example: .. index:: Backend, JavaScript, NotScanned.

List of all possible tags:

TypoScript
Changes that imply or introduce alterations to some TypoScript settings or modify the behavior of TypoScript itself. Frontend TypoScript only.
TSconfig
Changes or modifications on the PageTS or UserTS or the behavior of this field.
TCA
Every change related to TCA.
FlexForm
Changes affecting FlexForm functionality.
LocalConfiguration
Changes that affect the system/settings.php or the subordinated system/additional.php.
Fluid
Changes that alter behavior of Fluid like introducing new tags or modifying already established ones.
FAL
Changes to File Abstraction Layer.
Database
Changes that modify behavior of the database abstraction or introduces or removes new fields.
JavaScript
Modifying or introducing JavaScript.
PHP-API
Implementations of mandatory changes of the PHP-API.
Frontend
Changes that will affect the behavior or rendering of the TYPO3 Frontend.
Backend
Changes that will affect the behavior or rendering of the TYPO3 Backend.
CLI
Changes affecting CLI functionality.
RTE
Changes to RTE functionality.
ext:xyz
Changes on extension xyz. Please refer to this tag only when changing system extensions.

Furthermore, exactly one of the following tags must be added for all Deprecation and Breaking ReST files since TYPO3 v9 and above:

NotScanned
If this ReST file is not covered by the extension scanner at all.
PartiallyScanned
If some parts of the deprecated / removed functionality can be found by the extension scanner.
FullyScanned
If usages of all deprecated / removed functionality this ReST file is about can be found by the extension scanner. This tag is used by the extension scanner to mark a ReST file as "You are not affected by this in your codebase" if it does not find a match in extensions.