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1 ============================================================================
2 = This file
4 * This file attempts to describe the rules to use when hacking
5 automake.
7 ============================================================================
8 = Administrivia
10 * The correct response to most actual bugs is to write a new test case
11 which demonstrates the bug. Then fix the bug, re-run the test suite,
12 and check everything in.
14 * If you incorporate a change from somebody on the net:
15 First, if it is a large change, you must make sure they have signed the
16 appropriate paperwork.
17 Second, be sure to add their name and email address to THANKS
19 * If a change fixes a test, mention the test in the commit message.
20 If a change fixes a bug registered in the Automake debbugs tracker,
21 mention the bug number in the commit message.
23 * If somebody reports a new bug, mention his name in the commit message
24 and in the test case you write. Put him into THANKS.
26 * When documenting a non-trivial idiom or example in the manual, be
27 sure to add a test case for it, and to reference such test case from
28 a proper Texinfo comment.
30 * Some files in the automake package are not owned by automake; these
31 files are listed in the $(FETCHFILES) variable in Makefile.am. They
32 should never be edited here. Almost all of them can be updated from
33 respective upstreams with "make fetch" (this should be done especially
34 before releases). The only exception is the 'lib/COPYING' (from FSF),
35 which should be updated by hand whenever the GPL gets updated (which
36 shouldn't happen that often anyway :-)
38 * Changes other than bug fixes must be mentioned in NEWS. Important
39 bug fixes should be mentioned in NEWS, too.
41 ============================================================================
42 = Naming
44 * We've adopted the convention that internal AC_SUBSTs should be
45 named with a leading 'am__', and internally generated targets
46 should be named with a leading 'am--'. This convention, although
47 in place from at least February 2001, isn't yet universally used.
48 But all new code should use it.
50 We used to use '_am_' as the prefix for an internal AC_SUBST.
51 However, it turns out that NEWS-OS 4.2R complains if a Makefile
52 variable begins with the underscore character. Yay for them.
53 I changed the target naming convention just to be safe.
55 ============================================================================
56 = Editing '.am' files
58 * Always use $(...) and not ${...}
60 * Use ':', not 'true'. Use 'exit 1', not 'false'.
62 * Use '##' comments liberally. Comment anything even remotely
63 unusual.
65 * Never use basename or dirname. Instead use sed.
67 * Do not use 'cd' within back-quotes, use '$(am__cd)' instead.
68 Otherwise the directory name may be printed, depending on CDPATH.
69 More generally, do not ever use plain 'cd' together with a relative
70 directory that does not start with a dot, or you might end up in one
71 computed with CDPATH.
73 * For install and uninstall rules, if a loop is required, it should be
74 silent. Then the body of the loop itself should print each
75 "important" command it runs. The printed commands should be preceded
76 by a single space.
78 * Ensure install rules do not create any installation directory where
79 nothing is to be actually installed. See automake bug#11030.
81 ============================================================================
82 = Editing automake.in and aclocal.in
84 * Indent using GNU style. For historical reasons, the perl code
85 contains portions indented using Larry Wall's style (perl-mode's
86 default), and other portions using the GNU style (cperl-mode's
87 default). Write new code using GNU style.
89 * Don't use & for function calls, unless required.
90 The use of & prevents prototypes from being checked.
91 Just as above, don't change massively all the code to strip the
92 &, just convert the old code as you work on it, and write new
93 code without.
95 ============================================================================
96 = Working with git
98 * To regenerate dependent files created by aclocal and automake,
99 use the 'bootstrap.sh' script. It uses the code from the source
100 tree, so the resulting files (aclocal.m4 and Makefile.in) should
101 be the same as you would get if you install this version of
102 automake and use it to generate those files. Be sure to have the
103 latest stable version of Autoconf installed and available early
104 in your PATH.
106 * The Automake git tree currently carries two basic branches: 'master' for
107 the current development, and 'maint' for maintenance and bug fixes. The
108 maint branch should be kept regularly merged into the master branch.
109 It is advisable to merge only after a set of related commits have been
110 applied, to avoid introducing too much noise in the history.
112 * There may be a number of longer-lived feature branches for new
113 developments. They should be based off of a common ancestor of all
114 active branches to which the feature should or might be merged later.
115 in the future, we might introduce a special branch named 'next' that
116 may serve as common ground for feature merging and testing, should
117 they not yet be ready for master.
119 * After a major release is done, the master branch is to be merged into
120 the maint branch, and then a "new" master branch created stemming
121 from the resulting commit.
123 * When fixing a bug (especially a long-standing one), it may be useful
124 to commit the fix to a new temporary branch based off the commit that
125 introduced the bug. Then this "bugfix branch" can be merged into all
126 the active branches descending from the buggy commit. This offers a
127 simple way to fix the bug consistently and effectively.
129 * For merges from branches other than maint, prefer 'git merge --log' over
130 plain 'git merge', so that a later 'git log' gives an indication of which
131 actual patches were merged even when they don't appear early in the list.
133 * master and release branches should not be rewound, i.e., should always
134 fast-forward, except maybe for privacy issues. The maint branch should not
135 be rewound except maybe after retiring a release branch or a new stable
136 release. For next, and for feature branches, the announcement for the
137 branch should document rewinding policy.
139 ============================================================================
140 = Writing a good commit message
142 * Here is the general format that Automake's commit messages are expected
143 to follow. See the further points below for clarifications and minor
144 corrections.
146 topic: brief description (this is the "summary line")
148 <reference to relevant bugs, if any>
150 Here goes a more detailed explanation of why the commit is needed,
151 and a general overview of what it does, and how. This section is
152 optional, but you are expected to provide it more often than not.
154 And if the detailed explanation is quite long or detailed, you can
155 want to break it in more paragraphs.
157 Then you can add references to relevant mailing list discussions
158 (if any), with proper links. But don't take this as an excuse for
159 writing incomplete commit messages! The "distilled" conclusions
160 reached in such discussions should have been placed in the
161 paragraphs above.
163 Finally, here you can thank people that motivated or helped the
164 change. So, thanks to John Doe for bringing up the issue, and to
165 J. Random Hacker for providing suggestions and testing the patch.
167 <detailed list of touched files>
169 * The <detailed list of touched files> is mandatory but for the most
170 trivial changes, and should follows the GNU guidelines for ChangeLog
171 entries (described explicitly in the GNU Coding Standards); it might
172 be something of this sort:
174 * some/file (func1): Improved frobnication.
175 (func2): Adjusted accordingly.
176 * another/file (foo, bar): Likewise.
177 * tests/foo.tap: New test.
178 * tests/Makefile.am (TESTS): Add it.
180 * If your commit fixes an automake bug registered in the tracker (say
181 numbered 1234), you should put the following line after the summary
182 line:
184 This change fixes automake bug#1234.
186 * If your commit is just related to the given bug report, but does not
187 fix it, you might want to add a line like this instead:
189 This change is related to automake bug#1234.
191 * When referring to older commits, use 'git describe' output as pointer.
192 But also try to identify the given commit by date and/or summary line
193 if possible. Examples:
195 Since yesterday's commit, v1.11-2019-g4d2bf42, ...
197 ... removed in commit 'v1.11-1674-g02e9072' of 01-01-2012,
198 "dist: ditch support for lzma"...
200 ============================================================================
201 = Test suite
203 * Use "make check" and "make maintainer-check" liberally.
205 * Make sure each test file is executable.
207 * Export the 'keep_testdirs' environment variable to "yes" to keep
208 test directories for successful tests also.
210 * Use perl coverage information to ensure your new code is thoroughly
211 tested by your new tests.
213 * See file 't/README' for more information.
215 ============================================================================
216 = Release procedure
218 * The steps outlined here are meant to be followed for alpha and stable
219 releases as well. Where differences are expected, they will be
220 explicitly described.
222 * Fetch new versions of the files that are maintained by the FSF by
223 running "make fetch". In case any file in the automake repository
224 has been updated, commit and re-run the testsuite.
226 * Ensure that the copyright notices of the distributed files is up to
227 date. The maintainer-only target "update-copyright" can help with
228 this.
230 * Check NEWS; in particular, ensure that all the relevant differences
231 with the last release are actually reported.
233 * Update the version number in configure.ac.
234 (The idea is that every other alpha number will be a net release.
235 The repository will always have its own "odd" number so we can easily
236 distinguish net and repo versions.)
238 * Run this:
240 make bootstrap && make check && make distcheck
242 It is also advised to run "git clean -fdx" before invoking the
243 bootstrap, to ensure a really clean rebuild. However, it must
244 be done carefully, because that command will remove *all* the
245 files that are not tracked by git!
247 * Run "make git-tag-release".
248 This will run the maintainer checks, verify that the local git
249 repository and working tree are clean and up-to-date, and create
250 a proper signed git tag for the release (based on the contents
251 of $(VERSION)).
253 * Run "make git-upload-release".
254 This will first verify that you are releasing from a tagged version
255 and that the local git repository and working tree are clean and
256 up-to-date, and will then run "make dist" to create the tarballs,
257 and invoke the 'gnupload' script sign and upload them to the correct
258 locations. In case you need to sign with a non-default key, you can
259 use "make GNUPLOADFLAGS='--user KEY' git-upload-release".
261 * For stable releases you'll have to update the manuals at www.gnu.org.
263 - Generate manuals (with the help of the standard gendocs.sh script):
265 make web-manual
267 The ready-to-be-uploaded manuals (in several formats) will be left
268 in the 'doc/web-manuals' directory.
270 - Commit the updated manuals to web CVS:
272 make web-manual-update
274 If your local username is different from your username at Savannah,
275 you'll have to override the 'CVS_USER' make variable accordingly;
276 for example:
278 make web-manual-update CVS_USER=slattarini
280 - Check for link errors, fix them, recheck until convergence:
281 <http://validator.w3.org/checklink>
283 * Create an announcement message with "make announcement". Edit the
284 generated 'announcement' file appropriately, in particularly filling
285 in by hand any "TODO" left in there.
287 * Update version number in configure.ac to next alpha number.
288 Re-run ./bootstrap.sh and commit.
290 * Don't forget to "git push" your changes so they appear in the public
291 git tree.
293 * Send the announcement generated in the earlier steps at least to
294 <autotools-announce@gnu.org> and <automake@gnu.org>. If the release
295 is a stable one, the announcement must also go to <info-gnu@gnu.org>;
296 if it is an alpha or beta release, announcement should be sent also
297 to <platform-testers@gnu.org>, to maximize the possibility of early
298 testing on exotic or proprietary systems. Finally, copy an abridged
299 version of the announcement into the NEWS feed at:
300 <https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/automake>.
301 Be sure to link a version to the complete announcement (from
302 the version you sent to the automake list, as get archived on
303 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/>).
305 -----
307 Copyright (C) 2003-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
309 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
310 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
311 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
312 any later version.
314 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
315 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
316 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
317 GNU General Public License for more details.
319 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
320 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
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