11.2.x is released - update NEXT_MINOR

Changing the script constant from 11.2.x to const NEXT_MINOR_DEV = '11.3.x'; is enough to make 'check versions' pass. But this will not actually change any core versions being tested against.

CORE_NEXT_MINOR is still set to 11.x-dev. The description of this variable is
"Once the current minor-dev branch enters a beta phase, this is the dev branch for the *next* minor version."
The script allows this to be changed now to 11.2.x - I cannot see any prompt in the script that would alert us to changing this when we get to 'beta'. Is that something to add in?

Yeah, once it's in beta phase, we should update to this CORE_NEXT_MINOR: 11.2.x-dev. Maybe we can do something in the script to check when 11.2.0-beta* is available.

Maybe we can do something in the script to check when 11.2.0-beta* is available.

Yes we can. You can merge this MR, but leave the issue open, as the background info is here.

Great. I'll do that then, so we can also rebase the other open MRs.

I've pushed a couple of commits to the new MR, but this is a refactoring of the script, to add --verbose for detailed output, and to use global variables instead of repeating the getenv() dozen's of times. This will make the lines shorter and therefore easier to read and follow.

This is ready for first review and feedback. There are lots of commits as I have tried to show in separate stages what is done.

Test with current data - passes green, we see $expected_value = 11.x which is correct, as we are currently only at alpha for 11.2
https://git.drupalcode.org/issue/gitlab_templates-3524366/-/jobs/5280567

But using the new --beta 11.2.0-beta1 argument to simlate the future tagging of a 11.2 beta release the job shows

$expected_value = 11.2.x
- [ERROR] CORE_NEXT_MINOR (11.x-dev) does not match the expected value: 11.2.x-dev

and ends red as required.
https://git.drupalcode.org/issue/gitlab_templates-3524366/-/jobs/5280611

Thanks for all the extra comments, the options for verbosity and the additional changes. I left a really small suggestion in the MR.

I didn't understand the commands to simulate, but the example above is perfect to understand it. That's a great way to test for non-existing tags yet.

Needs work based on that really small suggestion (purely cosmetic), but mostly ready in my opinion.

Yes I will add the '(unused)' and also remove the temporary --verbose --beta

But I have asked a question in #slack about the timing of the change from 11.x-dev to 11.N.x-dev

From the agreement on Slack, here is my proposal for when CORE_NEXT_MINOR is changed
Data from sidebar on https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/releases/11.2.x-dev →

I'm happy for CORE_NEXT_MINOR to be 11.2.x-dev.

The "beta" comment was made long ago, probably before we had variants, so we don't need to wait for the beta phase to start testing it in CI. As part of this change, I'd also change the description of the variable, which probably brought all the confusion.

Thanks. I have changed the script to check for latest dev (not wait for beta) and modified the variable descriptions. The job should fail now, and tell us that CORE_NEXT_MINOR should be updated to 11.2.x-dev

I also updated the output following your MR comment, and this is ready for review and feedback.

There is still some clean up for the now-unused beta versions logic. I made suggestions in the MR.

I have tidied up the unused beta logic and removed the --dev 11.3.x test

Locally I also tested by adding $del = array_shift($dev_releases); at the end of gather_releases() to simulate the situation from a few days ago before 11.2.x-dev was created. The existing value of CORE_NEXT_MINOR: 11.x-dev is correctly derived as the expected value and no alert is shown.

Are the updated descriptions of the variables OK?

Ready for review

I think this is good to go. The descriptions look good and all the comments in the script too.
RTBC.

Merged. Thanks!

This is great. Thank you for letting me investigate this change and for working out a good solution to the forward progress of CORE_NEXT_MINOR. I hope this will help more maintainers and developers to get an earlier view of the upcoming release, but also not cause BC problems by using the main dev 11.x-dev branch any longer than is necessary.

I have updated the issue summary to say what was changed.

In case we needed any more justification/proof why we should switch to the 11.N.x-dev branch as soon as it becomes available, here is a pipeline running 'next minor' as it stands now (before the merge above is used). The core version is 11.x-dev so the log actually shows that the installed version is 11.3-dev - very confusing if you didn't know exactly what that means, because 11.3.x-dev has not been created yet. Once the changes in this issue make their way into the default-ref, then this job would show 11.2-dev (I hope), for 'next minor'
https://git.drupalcode.org/issue/scheduler-3445052/-/jobs/5372388#L1163