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1 | Here are some guidelines for working on the Guile source tree at GNU. |
2 | ||
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3 | - We use CVS to manage the Guile sources. The repository lives on |
4 | totoro.red-bean.com, in /u/src/master; you will need an account on | |
5 | that machine to access the repository. I recommend using the cvs | |
6 | pserver protocol; thus, you should use the following as your CVS root: | |
7 | ||
8 | :pserver:USER@guile-cvs.red-bean.com:/u/src/master | |
9 | ||
10 | Either set your CVSROOT environment variable to that, or give it as | |
11 | the value of the global -d option to CVS when you check out a working | |
12 | directory. | |
13 | ||
14 | If you want to use SSH for security, set your CVS_RSH environment | |
15 | variable to ssh, and then use the following as your CVS root: | |
16 | ||
17 | :ext:guile-cvs.red-bean.com:/u/src/master | |
18 | ||
19 | The Guile sources live in several modules: | |
20 | ||
21 | - guile-core --- the interpreter, QuickThreads, and ice-9 | |
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22 | - guile-doc --- documentation in progress. When complete, this will |
23 | be incorporated into guile-core. | |
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24 | - guile-tcltk --- the Guile/Tk interface |
25 | - guile-rgx-ctax --- the Guile/Rx interface, and the ctax implementation | |
26 | - guile-scsh --- the port of SCSH to guile, talk to Gary Houston | |
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28 | - As for any part of Project GNU, changes to Guile should follow the |
29 | GNU coding standards. The standards are available via anonymous FTP | |
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30 | from prep.ai.mit.edu, as /pub/gnu/standards/standards.texi and |
31 | make-stds.texi. | |
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33 | - Check Makefile.in and configure files into CVS, as well as any files |
34 | used to create them (Makefile.am, configure.in); don't check in | |
35 | Makefiles or header files generated by configuration scripts. The | |
36 | general rule is that you should be able to check out a working | |
37 | directory of Guile from CVS, and then type "configure" and "make". | |
38 | ||
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39 | - Make sure your changes compile and work, at least on your own |
40 | machine, before checking them into the main branch of the Guile | |
41 | repository. If you really need to check in untested changes, make a | |
42 | branch. | |
43 | ||
44 | - When you make a user-visible change (i.e. one that should be | |
45 | documented, and appear in NEWS, put an asterisk in column zero of the | |
46 | start of the ChangeLog entry, like so: | |
47 | ||
48 | Sat Aug 3 01:27:14 1996 Gary Houston <ghouston@actrix.gen.nz> | |
49 | ||
50 | * * fports.c (scm_open_file): don't return #f, throw error. | |
51 | ||
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52 | When you've written a NEWS entry and updated the documentation, go |
53 | ahead and remove the asterisk. I will use the asterisks to find and | |
54 | document changes that haven't been dealt with before a release. | |
55 | ||
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56 | - Include each log entry in both the ChangeLog and in the CVS logs. |
57 | If you're using Emacs, the pcl-cvs interface to CVS has features to | |
58 | make this easier; it checks the ChangeLog, and generates good default | |
59 | CVS log entries from that. | |
60 | ||
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61 | - There's no need to keep a change log for documentation files. This |
62 | is because documentation is not susceptible to bugs that are hard to | |
63 | fix. Documentation does not consist of parts that must interact in a | |
64 | precisely engineered fashion; to correct an error, you need not know | |
65 | the history of the erroneous passage. (This is copied from the GNU | |
66 | coding standards.) | |
67 | ||
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68 | - If you add or remove files, don't forget to update the appropriate |
69 | part of the relevant Makefile.am files, and regenerate the | |
70 | Makefile.in. If you forget this, the snapshot and distribution | |
71 | processes will not work. | |
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72 | |
73 | - Make sure you have papers from people before integrating their | |
74 | changes or contributions. This is very frustrating, but very | |
75 | important to do right. From maintain.texi, "Information for | |
76 | Maintainers of GNU Software": | |
77 | ||
78 | When incorporating changes from other people, make sure to follow the | |
79 | correct procedures. Doing this ensures that the FSF has the legal | |
80 | right to distribute and defend GNU software. | |
81 | ||
82 | For the sake of registering the copyright on later versions ofthe | |
83 | software you need to keep track of each person who makes significant | |
84 | changes. A change of ten lines or so, or a few such changes, in a | |
85 | large program is not significant. | |
86 | ||
87 | *Before* incorporating significant changes, make sure that the person | |
88 | has signed copyright papers, and that the Free Software Foundation has | |
89 | received them. | |
90 | ||
91 | If you receive contributions you want to use from someone, let me know | |
92 | and I'll take care of the administrivia. Put the contributions aside | |
93 | until we have the necessary papers. | |
94 | ||
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95 | - When you make substantial changes to a file, add the current year to |
96 | the list of years in the copyright notice at the top of the file. | |
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98 | - [From Mikael Djurfeldt] When working on the Guile internals, it is |
99 | quite often practical to implement a scheme-level procedure which | |
100 | helps you examine the feature you're working on. | |
101 | ||
102 | Examples of such procedures are: pt-size, debug-hand and | |
103 | current-pstate. | |
104 | ||
105 | I've now put #ifdef GUILE_DEBUG around all such procedures, so that | |
106 | they are not compiled into the "normal" Guile library. Please do the | |
107 | same when you add new procedures/C functions for debugging purpose. | |
108 | ||
109 | You can define the GUILE_DEBUG flag by passing --enable-guile-debug to | |
110 | the configure script. | |
111 | ||
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112 | |
113 | Jim Blandy |