Differences between build tags

[Shawn Teoh]

Greetings, so I have been trying to compare the difference between the different tags using git log, and I observed a strange behavior.

For instance,

git log --no-merges --oneline android-5.1.1_r6..android-5.1.1_r13 | cat | wc -l

returns 33, but

 git log --no-merges --oneline android-5.1.1_r12..android-5.1.1_r13 | cat | wc -l

returns a huge 285 instead.

Logically thinking, since r6 to r13 has a bigger gap, it should have more changes, but in this case r12 to r13 seem to have more changes. Can anyone please kindly enlighten me? Thank you.

[Magnus Bäck]

On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 00:34 CEST,

Releases aren't made based on the number of introduced commits.
Sometimes a release introduces many commits, other times very few.

--
Magnus Bäck | Software Engineer, Development Tools
magnu...@sonymobile.com | Sony Mobile Communications

[Timduru Meerkat]

_r6,  _r12 and _r13 are in different branches.

You currently have 3 main parallel branches for LP:  

• lollipop-mr1-release -  tags:  android-5.1.1_r4 android-5.1.1_r6 android-5.1.1_r9 android-5.1.1_r10
  
• lollipop-mr1-fi-release -  tags: android-5.1.1_r4 android-5.1.1_r8 android-5.1.1_r13
  
• lollipop-mr1-wfc-release -  tags: lollipop-mr1-devandroid-5.1.1_r5android-5.1.1_r12 

The wfc branch was forked a long time ago, and it's older, hence why it'll report many changes. when you compared from r12 to r13

It might also have gotten a bunch of cp, with commit ids changed it seems

But basically if you're currently at _r6 (mr1-release )  you should switch to the _r10 not _r13

It's very confusing, not sure why the tags are not named accordingly with their respective branches like add a suffix -wfc -fi

it would make it easier to identify.

[Preetam D'Souza]

Thanks for the explanation!

I, too, am very confused by this naming scheme. This is even worse with Marshmallow, where there are both "mr" and "dr" release branches, but no obvious connection to the build tags. I have no idea what "dr" even stands for...and it isn't obvious what the differences are due to all the cherry-picking.

If someone can provide more info on understanding and working with the AOSP branches, that would be great.