=head1 Development of RT RT's source code is stored in a C repository. If you are not familiar with git, see L, below, for a short tutorial which will give you enough information to get started submitting patches to RT. The rest of this document details conventions and tips surrounding the organization of RT's version control, source code conventions, and how to submit patches. =head1 Organization of rt.git The RT source repository is available via git from GitHub; you can browse it at L or obtain a local copy via: git clone git://github.com/bestpractical/rt.git The bleeding-edge development happens in the C branch. When a major release is anticipated, a "trunk" branch will be branched from this -- for example, C<4.0-trunk>. This will allow the trunk to stabilize while feature development continues on C. Additionally, as a release is impending for a particular series, a release engineering branch will be created, named, for example C<4.0.0-releng>. New feature development should always be based off of the C branch. Branches to fix bugs should be based off of whichever trunk the bug was first found in. If you found the bug in your RT 4.0.0 install, you'd branch from 4.0-trunk. Branches should be named based on the trunk they are branched from -- which is to say, the earliest branch they might be merged into. For example, a bugfix branched from C<4.0-trunk> might be named C<4.0/fail-taint-mode-early>. A feature branched from C when there exists a C<4.0-trunk> but no C<4.2-trunk> might be named C<4.2/rename-LogToScreen>. For consistency, branches should use dashes, not underscores, to separate words. Branches which are destined for 4.2, but which are branched from 4.0 (to provide for easy extraction as a 4.0 extension) should be named 4.2-on-4.0/branch-name. Branches should be reviewed by another developer before being merged. Reviewers should make sure that the branch accomplishes what it claims to, and does not introduce any unwanted behavior in doing so. Commit messages explain the B as much as the B of each commit, and not include extranous changes. =head1 Code conventions The RT codebase is more than ten years old; as such, there are sections which do not (yet) conform to the guidelines below. Please attempt to follow the guidelines, even if the code surrounding your changes does not yet. RT also includes a F<.perltidyrc> in its top-level which encodes many of the conventions. =over =item Indentation Each level of indentation should be four spaces; tabs should never be used for indentation. =back =head1 Internationalization RT has been translated into several dozen languages. We use Launchpad ( https://translations.launchpad.net/rt ) to crowdsource our translations into C files. RT uses L to localize its user interface. Your first stop on this magical journey of internationalization is L, which explains the whys of L. RT uses most of the features developed in that article. Strings that are displayed to users should be passed through the C function or the C<< <&|/l&>... >> Mason template. C and C both take parameters, which are used in place of string interpolation (much like C). It's acceptable to use HTML in C calls, especially for bold and emphasis. However, you should limit the amount of HTML that translators must keep exactly correct, which means avoid including tags that wrap the entire translatable string, especially C<<

>>.

<&|/l, $button &>Do not click [_1]

# ok <&|/l, $button &>

Do not click [_1]

# not ok In a few places in RT we also pass HTML as parameters to C so that translators do not have to reproduce it exactly, and we can also change it more freely. For example: <&|/l, '', '', &>Distributed under [_1]version 2 of the GNU GPL[_2]. F looks for C and C<< <&|/l&>... >> in our source code to pick out translatable strings, clean them up, and put them into F files. We use our C<.po> files not only to populate L's lexicons, but also to sync new translatable strings and translations with Launchpad. This Launchpad sync is typically done early during the freeze of RC releases to give our volunteer translators time to translate all the new strings which, because of the RC freeze, won't continue changing. Because C and C are used to generate strings for human eyes, they generally must be used "close to the browser". These are directly in Mason templates, or in functions that return text that will be passed through Mason. However, in many places in RT we have hardcoded strings which need translations. For example, the C<$RIGHTS> hash in F maps rights' names (which must be translatable) to their descriptions (which also must be translatable). However, when we're declaring such structures, we do not want to translate them straight away. RT uses English internally, including in its web forms, so we do not want to localize rights' names except for display, otherwise things might break weirdly when you check if a user has the "Superusuario" right. Furthermore, when we're declaring such data structures at compile time, there is no current user to select which language to use for localization. Thus, we cannot call C when declaring C<$RIGHTS> and other similar places. For this reason, F lets you denote translatable strings with comments. That's what the C<#loc_pair> comments in the C<$RIGHTS> hash in F indicate. Since we have those comments, our toolchain will put the rights' names and descriptions into F files, which enables translation by our lovely volunteers. Later on, when RT displays information about rights in the web UI, we'll pass the right's name through C, and L will then be able to find our "Superusuario". So although we never used a literal C, we still get its effects thanks to the C<#loc_pair> comments and using C. C<#loc_pair> is used for declaring that the both the key and value of a particular C<< key => value >> pair are translatable. There are other markers that you can use. C<#loc> is used for declaring that a particular string is translatable. Its parsing is pretty strict so you can use it to declare that only the value of a particular C<< key => value >> pair is translatable. C<#loc_left_pair> is used for declaring that the I of a particular C<< key => value >> pair is translatable. This is of very limited usefulness. C<#loc_right_pair> does NOT exist. C<#loc> works in such cases since its parser does not extend beyond the string at the end of a line. =head1 Development tips =head2 Setting up a development environment =head2 Test suite RT also comes with a fairly complete test suite. To run it, you will need to set environment variables to a database user and password which can create and drop databases: export RT_DBA_USER=root export RT_DBA_PASSWORD= You'll need to configure RT and make sure you have all the dependencies before running tests. To do this in place without installing: ./configure.ac --with-my-user-group --enable-layout=inplace --with-devel-mode make testdeps make fixdeps Adjust the relevant database options as necessary if you want to test on Postgres, Oracle, or SQLite. The default is MySQL. To run the test suite: make test If you have multiple processors, you can run the test suite in parallel, which will be significantly faster: make test-parallel The C<*-trunk> and C branches are expected to always be passing all tests. While it is acceptable to break tests in an intermediate commit, a branch which does not pass tests will not be merged. Ideally, commits which fix a bug should also include a testcase which fails before the fix and succeeds after. =head1 git quickstart =over =item 1. You will first need to obtain a copy of git; this is accomplished via C in RedHat and derivatives, or C for Debian or Ubuntu. =item 2. Next, obtain a copy of the RT source from git: git clone git://github.com/bestpractical/rt.git cd rt =item 3. Configure git to know your name and email address; git uses these when it makes commits. git config user.email your.email@example.com git config user.name Examp L. Name =item 4. Switch to the appropriate point to base your work on; this is generally C followed by the major version, followed by C<-trunk>. For example, if your bug was observed in version 3.8.9, you would choose C; if it was in 4.0.0, you would choose C. New features should be based on C. git checkout --track origin/4.0-trunk =item 5. Give your branch a name based on what you are attempting to accomplish. We suggest that branch names be lower-case and separate words with dashes, but this branch name is purely for your own reference. git branch -m gnupg-encryption =item 6. Edit the source tree to make your changes. A few commands you may find useful in doing so are listed below. To see what files you have changed: git status To see a line-by-line list of changes: git diff To revert a file to the original version: git checkout path/to/file To revert only individual parts of a file: git checkout -p path/to/file See L for more tips for working with the RT codebase. =item 7. Check that you have no extraneous changes using C, then commit your changes: git commit -a You will be prompted to type your commit message. The first line should be a short (E 80 character) summary of the changes, followed by a blank line, followed by a longer description, if necessary. The commit message should not simply restate the diff of which lines were added and subtracted, but should rather explain B those changes accomplish, and B they are desired. If your changes are easily split into multiple components, you may wish to split your changes into more than one commit; simply return to step 6 and repeat the with the next related change. If your changes are B related to each other, you should submit them separately; finish step 9, then start over from step 4. =item 8. Save your commits to patch files: git format-patch @{u} This will print out the names of the files as it creates them. =item 9. Attach these files to an email using your standard email client, and send it to C. =back If you have another bug or feature to implement, simply restart the process at step 4. =cut