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1 | |
2 | Contributing to Emacs | |
3 | ||
27e8e710 RS |
4 | Emacs is a collaborative project and we encourage contributions from |
5 | anyone and everyone. If you want to contribute in the way that will | |
6 | help us most, we recommend (1) fixing reported bugs and (2) | |
7 | implementing the feature ideas in etc/TODO. However, if you think of | |
8 | new features to add, please suggest them too -- we might like your | |
9 | idea. Porting to new platforms is also useful, when there is a new | |
10 | platform, but that is not common nowadays. | |
11 | ||
12 | For documentation on how to develop Emacs changes, refer to the Emacs | |
13 | Manual and the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual (both included in the Emacs | |
14 | distribution). The web pages in http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs | |
15 | contain additional information. | |
d1208b8b NR |
16 | |
17 | You may also want to submit your change so that can be considered for | |
6f82a6d0 | 18 | inclusion in a future version of Emacs (see below). |
d1208b8b | 19 | |
27e8e710 RS |
20 | If you don't feel up to hacking Emacs, there are many other ways to |
21 | help. You can answer questions on the mailing lists, write | |
22 | documentation, find and report bugs, contribute to the Emacs web | |
23 | pages, or develop a package that works with Emacs. | |
d1208b8b | 24 | |
27e8e710 | 25 | Here are some style and legal conventions for contributors to Emacs: |
6f82a6d0 | 26 | |
d1208b8b | 27 | |
05230057 | 28 | * Coding Standards |
d1208b8b | 29 | |
05230057 | 30 | Contributed code should follow the GNU Coding Standard. |
d1208b8b | 31 | |
05230057 KS |
32 | If it doesn't, we'll need to find someone to fix the code before we |
33 | can use it. | |
d1208b8b | 34 | |
05230057 | 35 | Emacs has certain additional style and coding conventions. |
d1208b8b | 36 | |
05230057 KS |
37 | Ref: http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_toc.html |
38 | Ref: GNU Coding Standards Info Manual | |
39 | Ref: The "Tips" Appendix in the Emacs Lisp Reference. | |
d1208b8b | 40 | |
d1208b8b | 41 | |
05230057 | 42 | * Copyright Assignment |
d1208b8b | 43 | |
05230057 KS |
44 | We can accept small changes without legal papers, and for medium-size |
45 | changes a copyright disclaimer is ok too. To accept substantial | |
46 | contributions from you, we need a copyright assignment form filled out | |
47 | and filed with the FSF. | |
d1208b8b | 48 | |
05230057 | 49 | Contact us at emacs-devel@gnu.org to obtain the relevant forms. |
d1208b8b | 50 | |
d1208b8b | 51 | |
05230057 | 52 | * Getting the Source Code |
ccda8b92 | 53 | |
05230057 KS |
54 | The latest version of Emacs can be downloaded using CVS or Arch from |
55 | the Savannah web site. It is important to write your patch based on | |
56 | this version; if you start from an older version, your patch may be | |
57 | outdated when you write it, and maintainers will have hard time | |
58 | applying it. | |
ccda8b92 | 59 | |
05230057 KS |
60 | After you have downloaded the CVS source, you should read the file |
61 | INSTALL.CVS for build instructions (they differ to some extent from a | |
62 | normal build). | |
d1208b8b | 63 | |
05230057 | 64 | Ref: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/emacs |
d1208b8b | 65 | |
d1208b8b | 66 | |
05230057 | 67 | * Submitting Patches |
d1208b8b | 68 | |
05230057 KS |
69 | Every patch must have several pieces of information before we |
70 | can properly evaluate it. | |
d1208b8b | 71 | |
05230057 KS |
72 | When you have all these pieces, bundle them up in a mail message and |
73 | send it to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org or emacs-devel@gnu.org. | |
d1208b8b | 74 | |
05230057 | 75 | All subsequent discussion should also be sent to the mailing list. |
6f82a6d0 | 76 | |
05230057 | 77 | ** Description |
d1208b8b | 78 | |
05230057 KS |
79 | For bug fixes, a description of the bug and how your patch fixes this |
80 | bug. | |
d1208b8b | 81 | |
05230057 KS |
82 | For new features, a description of the feature and your |
83 | implementation. | |
d1208b8b | 84 | |
05230057 | 85 | ** ChangeLog |
d1208b8b | 86 | |
05230057 | 87 | A ChangeLog entry as plaintext (separate from the patch). |
d1208b8b | 88 | |
05230057 KS |
89 | See the various ChangeLog files for format and content. Note that, |
90 | unlike some other projects, we do require ChangeLogs also for | |
91 | documentation, i.e. Texinfo files. | |
27e8e710 | 92 | |
05230057 KS |
93 | Ref: "Change Log Concepts" node of the GNU Coding Standards Info |
94 | Manual, for how to write good log entries. | |
d1208b8b | 95 | |
05230057 | 96 | ** The patch itself. |
ccda8b92 | 97 | |
05230057 | 98 | Please use "Context Diff" format. |
d1208b8b | 99 | |
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100 | If you are accessing the CVS repository use |
101 | cvs update; cvs diff -cp | |
102 | else, use | |
103 | diff -cp OLD NEW | |
d1208b8b | 104 | |
05230057 KS |
105 | If your version of diff does not support these options, then get the |
106 | latest version of GNU Diff. | |
ccda8b92 | 107 | |
05230057 | 108 | ** Mail format. |
d1208b8b | 109 | |
05230057 | 110 | We prefer to get the patches as inline plain text. |
d1208b8b | 111 | |
05230057 KS |
112 | Please be aware of line wrapping which will make the patch unreadable |
113 | and useless for us. To avoid that, you can use MIME attachments or, | |
114 | as a last resort, uuencoded gzipped text. | |
014a250c | 115 | |
05230057 | 116 | ** Please reread your patch before submitting it. |
d1208b8b | 117 | |
05230057 KS |
118 | ** Do not mix changes. |
119 | ||
120 | If you send several unrelated changes together, we will ask you to | |
121 | separate them so we can consider each of the changes by itself. | |
122 | ||
123 | ||
124 | * Coding style and conventions. | |
125 | ||
126 | ** Mandatory reading: | |
127 | ||
128 | The "Tips and Conventions" Appendix of the Emacs Lisp Reference. | |
129 | ||
130 | ** Avoid using `defadvice' or `eval-after-load' for Lisp code to be | |
131 | included in Emacs. | |
132 | ||
133 | ** Remove all trailing whitespace in all source and text files. | |
134 | ||
135 | ** Use ?\s instead of ? in Lisp code for a space character. | |
136 | ||
137 | ||
138 | * Supplemental information for Emacs Developers. | |
139 | ||
140 | ** Write access to Emacs' CVS repository. | |
141 | ||
142 | Once you become a frequent contributor to Emacs, we can consider | |
143 | giving you write access to the CVS repository. | |
144 | ||
145 | ||
146 | ** Emacs Mailing lists. | |
147 | ||
148 | Discussion about Emacs development takes place on emacs-devel@gnu.org. | |
149 | ||
f41adf50 | 150 | Bug reports for released versions are sent to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. |
05230057 KS |
151 | |
152 | Bug reports for development versions are sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org. | |
153 | ||
154 | You can subscribe to the mailing lists at savannah.gnu.org/projects/emacs. | |
155 | ||
f41adf50 | 156 | You can find the mailing lists archives at lists.gnu.org or gmane.org. |
05230057 KS |
157 | |
158 | ||
159 | ** Document your changes. | |
160 | ||
161 | Think carefully about whether your change requires updating the | |
162 | documentation. If it does, you can either do this yourself or add an | |
163 | item to the NEWS file. | |
164 | ||
165 | If you document your change in NEWS, please mark the NEWS entry with | |
166 | the documentation status of the change: if you submit the changes for | |
167 | the manuals, mark it with "+++"; if it doesn't need to be documented, | |
168 | mark it with "---"; if it needs to be documented, but you didn't | |
169 | submit documentation changes, leave the NEWS entry unmarked. (These | |
170 | marks are checked by the Emacs maintainers to make sure every change | |
171 | was reflected in the manuals.) | |
172 | ||
173 | ||
174 | ** Understanding Emacs Internals. | |
175 | ||
176 | The best way to understand Emacs Internals is to read the code, | |
177 | but the nodes "Tips" and "GNU Emacs Internals" in the Appendix | |
178 | of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual may also help. | |
179 | ||
180 | The file etc/DEBUG describes how to debug Emacs bugs. | |
181 | ||
182 | ||
183 | ||
184 | * How to Maintain Copyright Years for GNU Emacs | |
185 | ||
186 | ** Our lawyer says it is ok if we add, to each file that has been in Emacs | |
187 | since Emacs 21 came out in 2001, all the subsequent years. We don't | |
188 | need to check whether *that file* was changed in those years. | |
189 | It's sufficient that *Emacs* was changed in those years (and it was!). | |
190 | ||
191 | ** For those files that have been added since then, we should add | |
f41adf50 | 192 | the year it was added to Emacs, and all subsequent years. |
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193 | |
194 | ** For the refcards under etc/, it's ok to simply use the latest year | |
195 | (typically in a `\def\year{YEAR}' expression) for the rendered copyright | |
196 | notice, while maintaining the full list of years in the copyright notice | |
197 | in the comments. | |
198 | ||
199 | \f | |
200 | Local variables: | |
201 | mode: outline | |
202 | paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$" | |
203 | end: | |
d1208b8b | 204 |