Overpass API developpement

[Sarah Hoffmann <>]

Hi Roland,

On Fri, Aug 05, 2022 at 07:07:33AM +0200, Roland Olbricht wrote:
> > 1. Where can I follow to be notified of new releases?
> [..]
> > 3. Where is overpass currently being developed?
> 
> The releases are always from branch "minor_issues". As far as I know,
> one cannot tell GitHub to use this as the default branch, thus the
> impression on GitHub is admittedly misleading.
> 
> The purpose of that branch is to be able to patch minor bugs immediately
> from the last stable version. This is reflected in the version numbers,
> by the rightmost number.
> 
> I've never reflected whether it may make sense to just use the master
> branch instead of the "minor_issues". It sounds implausible to have a
> nervous master branch.

You can change the default branch under Settings->Branches but I'm not
sure this is what you want.

In theory you could just tag patch releases on the minor_issue branch
and be done with it. But that doesn't work well when you recreate your
minor_issue branch on every new major release.

The more conventional way to handle this situation is to have master
as the continuous branch, tag the major release there and when there
are patch releases to be done, branch off a new branch from the tag
with the name of the current release, i.e. you have one minor issues
branch for every major release. Then you can tag your patch releases
as well and it is very easy to see new releases on Github and also
use git to easily see the changes and commits that went into it.

NB: if you create a release on Github (that means not just tagging
the release but also 'Draft new realse' under 'Releases' in Github),
then people can subscribe to that on Github and will be notified.

> 
> > 2. [..] Are there any update instructions for people who are running
> > their own installation? The most important question being naturally:
> > how do I update an existing installation to the new release?
> 
> All binaries of a minor version are intended to be fully exchangeable
> for each other. I.e. you even do not need to stop the dispatcher but
> copy the "interpreter" and "osm3s_query" over with the new version.
> A change in the internal communication protocol would be a new version
> in its own right, but has not happened since some years.
> 
> A new point version should be installed with a complete set of new
> binaries. Whether the database can be reused is told in the release
> notes. Most of the time, the format does not change, and some of the
> last changes offered a one-way migration option from old to new.

Any chance to have a copy of the release notes in Github as per
"making release" above? I did eventually find release notes for the
major versions in the OSM wiki but they are very well hidden.

Sarah