This document describes the usages and rules to follow when contributing to this project.
It uses the uppercase keywords SHOULD for optional but highly recommended conditions and MUST for required conditions.
git
is a distributed source code versioning system. This document refers
to three different repositories hosting the source code of the project.
Your local copy
refers to the copy of the repository that you have on
your computer. The remote repository origin
refers to your fork of the
project's repository that you can find in your GitHub account. The remote
repository upstream
refers to the official repository for this project.
Upon identifying a bug you SHOULD submit a ticket, regardless of your plan for fixing it. If you plan to fix the bug, you SHOULD discuss your plans to avoid having your work rejected.
Before implementing a new feature, you SHOULD submit a ticket for discussion on your plans. The feature might have been rejected already, or the implementation might already be decided.
You MUST fork the project's repository to your GitHub account by clicking
on the Fork
button.
Then, from your fork's page, copy the Git Read-Only
URL to your clipboard.
You MUST perform the following commands in the folder you choose, replacing
$URL
by the URL you just copied, $UPSTREAM_URL
by the Git Read-Only
project of the official repository, and $PROJECT
by the name of this project.
$ git clone "$URL"
$ cd $PROJECT
$ git remote add upstream $UPSTREAM_URL
Before starting working on the code, you MUST update to upstream
. The
project is always evolving, and as such you SHOULD always strive to keep
up to date when submitting patches to make sure they can be merged without
conflicts.
To update the current branch to upstream
, you can use the following commands.
$ git fetch upstream
$ git rebase upstream/main
It may ask you to stash your changes, in which case you stash with:
$ git stash
And put your changes back in with:
$ git stash pop
You SHOULD use these commands both before working on your patch and before submitting the pull request. If conflicts arise it is your responsibility to deal with them.
You MUST create a new branch for your work. First make sure you have
'fetched' main
$ git checkout -b $BRANCH upstream/main
You MUST use a an insightful branch name.
If you later need to switch back to an existing branch $BRANCH
, you can use:
$ git checkout $BRANCH
The following rules MUST be followed:
- Indentation uses 4 horizontal spaces
- Tabs should not be used
- Do NOT align code; only indentation is allowed
The following rules SHOULD be followed:
- Write small functions whenever possible
- Avoid having too many clauses containing clauses containing clauses
- Lines SHOULD NOT span more than 80 columns
When in doubt indentation as performed in the Erlang Emacs Mode is correct.
You MUST ensure that all commits pass all tests and do not have extra Dialyzer warnings.
You MUST put all the related work in a single commit. Fixing a bug is one commit, adding a feature is one commit, adding two features is two commits.
You MUST write a proper commit title and message. The commit title MUST be at most 72 characters; it is the first line of the commit text. The second line of the commit text MUST be left blank. The third line and beyond is the commit message. You SHOULD write a commit message. If you do, you MUST make all lines smaller than 80 characters. You SHOULD explain what the commit does, what references you used and any other information that helps understanding your work.
You MUST push your branch $BRANCH
to GitHub, using the following command:
$ git push origin $BRANCH
You MUST then submit the pull request by using the GitHub interface to
the main
branch. You SHOULD provide an explanatory message and refer
to any previous ticket related to this patch.