ledger/CONTRIBUTING.md
2018-02-16 16:24:13 -08:00

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Tips for contributors
---------------------
* Please **make pull requests against `next`, not `master`**. Ledger follows
a [git-flow] branching model, in which development happens on the `next`
branch and is subsequently merged into `master` for releases.
* If you're making **changes to files for which the Travis build is not
relevant**, please **add `[ci skip]` to the end of the commit message**.
* Report bugs using [GitHub Issues].
GLOSSARY
----
Developing the Ledger software uses a number different tools, not all of
which will be familiar to all developers.
**[Boost]**: a standard set of C++ libraries. Most
Boost libraries consist of inline functions and templates in header files.
**[Boost.Python]**: C++ library which enables seamless interoperability
between C++ and the Python programming language.
**[Cheetah]**: a Python templating engine, used by `./python/server.py`.
**[CMake]**: A cross platform system for building from source code. It uses
the `CMakeLists.txt` files.
**[Doxygen]**: generates programming documentation from
source code files. Primarily used on C++ sources, but works on all. Uses
the `doc/Doxyfile.in` file.
**[GCC]**: Gnu Compiler Collection, which includes the
*gcc* compiler and *gcov* coverage/profiler tool.
**[clang]**: C language family frontend for LLVM, which
includes the *clang* compiler.
**[GMP]**: Gnu Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library
provides arbitrary precision math.
**[MPFR]**: Gnu Multiple Precision Floating-point Library
with correct rounding.
**[Markdown]**: A typesetter
format that produces *html* files from *.md* files. Note that GitHub
automatically renders *.md* files.
**[SHA1]**: a marginally secure cryptographic hash function, used only for
signing the license file.
**[Texinfo]**: Gnu documentation
typesetter that produces *html* and *pdf* files from the `doc/\*.texi` files.
**[Travis CI]**: a hosted continuous integration
service that builds and runs tests each commit posted to GitHub. Each
build creates a [log], updates a [small badge] at
the top left of the main project's
[README.md], and
emails the author of the commit if any tests fail.
**[utfcpp]**: a library for handling utf-8 in a variety of C++ versions.
Orientation
---
The source tree can be confusing to a new developer. Here is a selective
orientation:
**./acprep**: a custom thousand-line script to install dependencies, grab
updates, and build. It also creates `\*.cmake`,
`./CmakeFiles/` and other CMake temporary files. Use `./acprep --help`
for more information.
**./README.md**: user readme file in markdown format, also used as the project
description on GitHub.
**./contrib/**: contributed scripts of random quality and completion. They
usually require editing to run.
**./doc/**: documentation, licenses, and
tools for generating documents such as the *pdf* manual.
**./lib/**: a couple of libraries used in development.
**./python/**: samples using the Python ledger module.
**./src/**: the C++ header and source files in a flat directory.
**./test/**: a testing harness with subdirectories full of tests
**./tools/**: an accretion of tools, mostly small scripts, to aid development
Building
---
If you are going to be working on Ledger, you'll want to enable both debug
builds (which are the default, using `acprep`), and also the use of
pre-compiled headers. To do this, specify your compiler as either `clang++`
or `g++` as follows:
mkdir build
./acprep --compiler=clang++
cd build
make
This will set up a debug build using clang++ (and pre-compiled headers, which
is enabled by the combination of those two), and then start a build.
For even quicker rebuilds, try the Ninja build tool, which is very fast at
determining what to rebuild, and automatically takes advantage of multiple
cores:
mkdir build
./acprep --compiler=clang++ --ninja
cd build
ninja
[Boost]: http://boost.org
[Boost.Python]: http://www.boost.org/libs/python/
[GitHub Issues]: https://github.com/ledger/ledger/issues
[GMP]: http://gmplib.org/
[MPFR]: http://www.mpfr.org/
[Cheetah]: http://www.cheetahtemplate.org
[CMake]: http://www.cmake.org
[Doxygen]: http://doxygen.org
[Markdown]: https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
[SHA1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1
[Texinfo]: http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/
[Travis CI]: https://travis-ci.org
[GCC]: http://gcc.gnu.org
[utfcpp]: http://utfcpp.sourceforge.net
[log]: https://travis-ci.org/ledger/ledger
[small badge]: https://img.shields.io/travis/ledger/ledger/master.svg?&style=flat
[git-flow]: http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/
[README.md]: https://github.com/ledger/ledger/blob/master/README.md
[clang]: http://clang.llvm.org