Software Development (WG1) Version Control (T3)

Setting up a VistA Development Environment

Overview

This is a description of how VistA development environments should be configured.

Bold text designates program names, directory names, command line parameters, etc., that are intended to be typed in at a Linux shell or a GT.M prompt, e.g. /bin/bash. Italic text is a descriptor of something whose actual value must be determined when the command is typed, e.g., gtmver.

Theory

A release is a collection of routines and global variables. The canonical packaging of a release, which is suitable for importation into any standard M distribution, is a collection of M source code routines and a database extract in ZWRite format. When installed on a system, to run with an M implementation, a release may have pre-compiled object files, database files, shell scripts, global directories, etc.

Below is a diagram of the “roll-up” by which a VistA release (“Release A”) gets converted into another VistA release (“Release B”) by a development team. A and B could be from different families, e.g., Release A could be a FOIA release and Release B could be a Leonardo da VistA release.