Contributor guide

This document provides guidelines for people who want to contribute to the project.

Create tickets

Please use the bugtracker [1] before starting some work:

  • check if the bug or feature request has already been filed. It may have been answered too!
  • else create a new ticket.
  • if you plan to contribute, tell us, so that we are given an opportunity to give feedback as soon as possible.
  • Then, in your commit messages, reference the ticket with some refs #TICKET-ID syntax.

Fork and branch

  • Work in forks and branches.
  • Prefix your branch with the ticket ID corresponding to the issue. As an example, if you are working on ticket #23 which is about contribute documentation, name your branch like 23-contribute-doc.

Setup a development environment

System requirements:

  • Python [2] version 2.6 or 2.7, available as python command.

    Note

    You may use Virtualenv [3] to make sure the active python is the right one.

  • make and wget to use the provided Makefile.

Execute:

git clone git@github.com/benoitbryon/xal.git
cd xal/
make develop

If you cannot execute the Makefile, read it and adapt the few commands it contains to your needs.

The Makefile

A Makefile is provided to ease development. Use it to:

  • setup the development environment: make develop
  • update it, as an example, after a pull: make update
  • run tests: make test
  • build documentation: make documentation

The Makefile is intended to be a live reference for the development environment.