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| |
| When Contributing Source Code |
| |
| This document is intended to offer guidelines that can be useful to keep in |
| mind when you decide to contribute to the project. This concerns new features |
| as well as corrections to existing flaws or bugs. |
| |
| Join the Community |
| |
| Skip over to http://curl.haxx.se/mail/ and join the appropriate mailing |
| list(s). Read up on details before you post questions. Read this file before |
| you start sending patches! We prefer patches and discussions being held on |
| the mailing list(s), not sent to individuals. |
| |
| We also hang out on IRC in #curl on irc.freenode.net |
| |
| License |
| |
| When contributing with code, you agree to put your changes and new code under |
| the same license curl and libcurl is already using unless stated and agreed |
| otherwise. |
| |
| If you add a larger piece of code, you can opt to make that file or set of |
| files to use a different license as long as they don't enforce any changes to |
| the rest of the package and they make sense. Such "separate parts" can not be |
| GPL licensed (as we don't want copyleft to affect users of libcurl) but they |
| must use "GPL compatible" licenses (as we want to allow users to use libcurl |
| properly in GPL licensed environments). |
| |
| When changing existing source code, you do not alter the copyright of the |
| original file(s). The copyright will still be owned by the original |
| creator(s) or those who have been assigned copyright by the original |
| author(s). |
| |
| By submitting a patch to the curl project, you are assumed to have the right |
| to the code and to be allowed by your employer or whatever to hand over that |
| patch/code to us. We will credit you for your changes as far as possible, to |
| give credit but also to keep a trace back to who made what changes. Please |
| always provide us with your full real name when contributing! |
| |
| What To Read |
| |
| Source code, the man pages, the INTERNALS document, TODO, KNOWN_BUGS, the |
| most recent CHANGES. Just lurking on the libcurl mailing list is gonna give |
| you a lot of insights on what's going on right now. Asking there is a good |
| idea too. |
| |
| Naming |
| |
| Try using a non-confusing naming scheme for your new functions and variable |
| names. It doesn't necessarily have to mean that you should use the same as in |
| other places of the code, just that the names should be logical, |
| understandable and be named according to what they're used for. File-local |
| functions should be made static. We like lower case names. |
| |
| See the INTERNALS document on how we name non-exported library-global |
| symbols. |
| |
| Indenting |
| |
| Please try using the same indenting levels and bracing method as all the |
| other code already does. It makes the source code a lot easier to follow if |
| all of it is written using the same style. We don't ask you to like it, we |
| just ask you to follow the tradition! ;-) This mainly means: 2-level indents, |
| using spaces only (no tabs) and having the opening brace ({) on the same line |
| as the if() or while(). |
| |
| Commenting |
| |
| Comment your source code extensively using C comments (/* comment */), DO NOT |
| use C++ comments (// this style). Commented code is quality code and enables |
| future modifications much more. Uncommented code risk having to be completely |
| replaced when someone wants to extend things, since other persons' source |
| code can get quite hard to read. |
| |
| General Style |
| |
| Keep your functions small. If they're small you avoid a lot of mistakes and |
| you don't accidentally mix up variables etc. |
| |
| Non-clobbering All Over |
| |
| When you write new functionality or fix bugs, it is important that you don't |
| fiddle all over the source files and functions. Remember that it is likely |
| that other people have done changes in the same source files as you have and |
| possibly even in the same functions. If you bring completely new |
| functionality, try writing it in a new source file. If you fix bugs, try to |
| fix one bug at a time and send them as separate patches. |
| |
| Platform Dependent Code |
| |
| Use #ifdef HAVE_FEATURE to do conditional code. We avoid checking for |
| particular operating systems or hardware in the #ifdef lines. The |
| HAVE_FEATURE shall be generated by the configure script for unix-like systems |
| and they are hard-coded in the config-[system].h files for the others. |
| |
| Separate Patches |
| |
| It is annoying when you get a huge patch from someone that is said to fix 511 |
| odd problems, but discussions and opinions don't agree with 510 of them - or |
| 509 of them were already fixed in a different way. Then the patcher needs to |
| extract the single interesting patch from somewhere within the huge pile of |
| source, and that gives a lot of extra work. Preferably, all fixes that |
| correct different problems should be in their own patch with an attached |
| description exactly what they correct so that all patches can be selectively |
| applied by the maintainer or other interested parties. |
| |
| Patch Against Recent Sources |
| |
| Please try to get the latest available sources to make your patches |
| against. It makes the life of the developers so much easier. The very best is |
| if you get the most up-to-date sources from the CVS repository, but the |
| latest release archive is quite OK as well! |
| |
| Document |
| |
| Writing docs is dead boring and one of the big problems with many open source |
| projects. Someone's gotta do it. It makes it a lot easier if you submit a |
| small description of your fix or your new features with every contribution so |
| that it can be swiftly added to the package documentation. |
| |
| The documentation is always made in man pages (nroff formatted) or plain |
| ASCII files. All HTML files on the web site and in the release archives are |
| generated from the nroff/ASCII versions. |
| |
| Write Access to CVS Repository |
| |
| If you are a frequent contributor, or have another good reason, you can of |
| course get write access to the CVS repository and then you'll be able to |
| check-in all your changes straight into the CVS tree instead of sending all |
| changes by mail as patches. Just ask if this is what you'd want. You will be |
| required to have posted a few quality patches first, before you can be |
| granted write access. |
| |
| Test Cases |
| |
| Since the introduction of the test suite, we can quickly verify that the main |
| features are working as they're supposed to. To maintain this situation and |
| improve it, all new features and functions that are added need to be tested |
| in the test suite. Every feature that is added should get at least one valid |
| test case that verifies that it works as documented. If every submitter also |
| posts a few test cases, it won't end up as a heavy burden on a single person! |
| |
| How To Make a Patch |
| |
| Keep a copy of the unmodified curl sources. Make your changes in a separate |
| source tree. When you think you have something that you want to offer the |
| curl community, use GNU diff to generate patches. |
| |
| If you have modified a single file, try something like: |
| |
| diff -u unmodified-file.c my-changed-one.c > my-fixes.diff |
| |
| If you have modified several files, possibly in different directories, you |
| can use diff recursively: |
| |
| diff -ur curl-original-dir curl-modified-sources-dir > my-fixes.diff |
| |
| The GNU diff and GNU patch tools exist for virtually all platforms, including |
| all kinds of Unixes and Windows: |
| |
| For unix-like operating systems: |
| |
| http://www.fsf.org/software/patch/patch.html |
| http://www.gnu.org/directory/diffutils.html |
| |
| For Windows: |
| |
| http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm |
| http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/diffutils.htm |
| |
| How to get your patches into the libcurl sources |
| |
| 1. Submit your patch to the curl-library mailing list |
| |
| 2. Make the patch against as recent sources as possible. |
| |
| 3. Make sure your patch adheres to the source indent and coding style of |
| already existing source code. Failing to do so just adds more work for me. |
| |
| 4. Respond to replies on the list about the patch and answer questions and/or |
| fix nits/flaws. This is very important. I will take lack of replies as a |
| sign that you're not very anxious to get your patch accepted and I tend to |
| simply drop such patches from my TODO list. |
| |
| 5. If you've followed the above mentioned paragraphs and your patch still |
| hasn't been incorporated after some weeks, consider resubmitting them to |
| the list. |