| author |
Steve Losh <steve@stevelosh.com> |
| date |
Sat, 08 Apr 2017 14:21:00 +0000 |
| parents |
d7f633984384 |
| children |
f5556130bda1 |
+++
title = "How to Contribute to Mercurial"
snip = "Ten minutes of setup will make it easier."
date = 2009-06-01T20:09:44Z
draft = false
+++
After my last post on [What I Hate About Mercurial][hate], seydar commented
that I should contribute a patch to add untrack/forget functionality. I
decided to take the advice, stop being lazy and write one.
It's a very, very simple change and I'm not sure if it will even make it into
the core repository, but even so it gave me a chance to figure out how to set
up a decent development environment for hacking on Mercurial. I figured that
other people might find that information useful so I decided to write this.
[hate]: http://stevelosh.com/blog/entry/2009/5/29/what-i-hate-about-mercurial/
<div id="toc"></div>
About This Guide
----------------
This is meant to be a guide to get yourself set up to work on Mercurial's code
base and contribute your work back to the community. It's *not* a guide for
actually working on the code.
I'm going to go ahead and assume a few (small) things:
1. You're running OS X or some form of Linux. If you're using Windows, I'm
sorry, but I just don't use it enough to really help.
2. You've got [Python][] installed.
3. You've got a copy of Mercurial installed in some way (MacPorts, apt-get,
source, etc).
4. You're familiar with (and have clients for) IRC and email.
If those things are true, let's get started. The entire process should take
between 15 and 45 minutes, depending on how comfortable you are with bash,
Python, and Mercurial itself.
[Python]: http://python.org/
Join the Community
------------------
The first step to contributing is to join the community. Things will probably
go more smoothly if other developers have seen your name before and those
other developers are a great resource if you get stuck.
Join the [#mercurial channel on Freenode][irc]. A lot of other Mercurial
developers hang out in there and it's a good place to go if you want some
really quick feedback. Take a few minutes and [register your nick][register]
on Freenode, just because it's a good thing to do.
You should also [subscribe][] to the Mercurial development [mailing list][].
That's where you're going to be sending your work, so it's good to start
getting an idea of how people use the list as soon as possible.
[irc]: irc://irc.freenode.net/#mercurial
[register]: http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#userregistration
[subscribe]: http://www.selenic.com/mailman/listinfo/mercurial-devel/
[mailing list]: http://www.selenic.com/pipermail/mercurial-devel/
Grab the Source
---------------
Now you'll want to grab the Mercurial source code so you can start changing
it. The repository you almost certainly want to clone is the [crew
repository][].
Several people (listed [here][crew members]) have write access to this and
it's where most changes go before they're pulled into the main Mercurial
repositories. Your want your changes to apply cleanly to the tip of crew if
you want them to have the best chance of being accepted.
Go ahead and clone it somewhere on your machine (replace `hg-crew` if you
prefer a different name for the folder):
```text
hg clone http://hg.intevation.org/mercurial/crew hg-crew
```
It's going to take a little while. Mercurial might be fast but its repository
has over 8,600 changesets. While you're waiting you can move on to the next
step.
[crew repository]: http://hg.intevation.org/mercurial/crew
[crew members]: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/CrewRepository
Set Up virtualenv
-----------------
This might not seem like it's necessary, but trust me, it's a good thing to
do. It will make things easier down the road, I promise.
No, *really*, take ten minutes and do this. You'll thank me.
[virtualenv][] is a tool that lets you create separate Python development
environments that are isolated from each other. The packages and binaries for
one won't contaminate the others. It will make testing our work on Mercurial
painless.
Open a new terminal window while the crew repository is busy cloning. Install
virtualenv in the usual Python fashion:
```text
sudo easy_install virtualenv
```
Now install the [virtualenvwrapper][] tool:
```text
sudo easy_install virtualenvwrapper
```
This is a nifty little shell script that makes working with virtual
environments much more pleasant. Before you can use it, you'll need to source
it into your `~/.bashrc` or `~/.bash_profile` file, as well as choose a place
to stick the environments themselves:
```bash
export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/lib/virtualenvs
source /(path to python)/bin/virtualenvwrapper_bashrc
```
As you can see, I prefer to put the `virtualenvs` folder inside my `~/lib`
folder. You can change that to any place you like.
You'll also need to replace the `(path to python)` with the actual path to
wherever Python is installed on your system. If you're not sure, here's a
simple, slow, and horribly inefficient but effective command to figure it out:
```text
find / -name 'virtualenvwrapper_bashrc' 2> /dev/null
```
Once you've got the necessary lines in your `~/.bashrc` you can close that
terminal window.
[virtualenv]: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv
[virtualenvwrapper]: http://www.doughellmann.com/projects/virtualenvwrapper/
Set Up A Public Repository
--------------------------
This isn't strictly required, but it's polite and only takes a minute or two.
If you've already got a method of sharing your repositories (using hgwebdir
with your website, for example) go ahead and use that.
If not, head over to [BitBucket][], sign up for an account if you don't
already have one (it's free), and create a new public repository there. I've
named mine [hg-crew-sjl][] to be explicit about what it contains, but that's
not terribly important.
Why bother doing this when you're just going to email your work anyway? Some
people (myself included) find it easier to pull changes from another
repository than to apply them from emails. It also gets your changes out into
a public place so other developers can view and modify *your* modifications.
It's also nice to have an easily accessible clone of your personal repository
if you're not at your own machine and want to do some more work.
[BitBucket]: http://bitbucket.org/
[hg-crew-sjl]: http://bitbucket.org/sjl/hg-crew-sjl/
Set Up Your Local Clone
-----------------------
By now the crew repository should be finished cloning to your local machine.
The first thing we want to do is set up the paths so we can push and pull
easily. Modify the `.hg/hgrc` file inside that repository (*not* your
`~/.hgrc` file!) to look like this:
```ini
[paths]
default = http://bitbucket.org/(username)/(repo name)/
crew = http://hg.intevation.org/mercurial/crew
```
Replace `(username)` with your BitBucket username and `(repo name)` with the
name of the BitBucket repository, obviously.
Now you can run `hg push` to push any changes you commit locally to your
public BitBucket repository, and `hg pull crew` to grab new changes from the
crew repository.
Build Mercurial
---------------
Make sure you're in your local crew repository, and run:
```text
make local
```
This will build Mercurial from the source files. It should finish fairly
quickly. Once that's done, run the tests to make sure everything is working
correctly:
```text
make tests
```
Those will take a long time to run. While you wait, move on to the next step.
Create a Virtual Environment for Mercurial Development
------------------------------------------------------
While the test suite is running you're going to make a new virtual environment
to use for testing your changes to Mercurial. First you need to create it, so
open up a new terminal window and run:
```text
mkvirtualenv hg-dev
```
You can name it something else if you don't like `hg-dev`. Notice how your
shell prompt now has `(hg-dev)` prepended to it? That's there to remind you
that you're working in that environment.
Creating the environment automatically puts you into it for that shell
session. To get into it in the future you'll use:
```text
workon hg-dev
```
Now you need to link the Mercurial libraries you're going to change to this
environment, so you can use it to test your code. Run the following three
commands:
```text
ln -s (full path to crew)/mercurial $WORKON_HOME/hg-dev/lib/python2.6/site-packages/
ln -s (full path to crew)/hgext $WORKON_HOME/hg-dev/lib/python2.6/site-packages/
ln -s (full path to crew)/hg $WORKON_HOME/hg-dev/bin/
```
Replace `(full path to crew)` with the *full* path to your local crew
repository, and `hg-dev` with the name of your virtual environment (if you
named it differently than I did).
Why Bother With a Virtual Environment?
--------------------------------------
It's probably the most work in this entire process, so why did I insist you
set it up? Watch this:
```console
sjl at ecgtheow in ~/src/hg-crew-sjl on default
$ hg --version
Mercurial Distributed SCM (version 1.2.1)
Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> and others
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
sjl at ecgtheow in ~/src/hg-crew-sjl on default
$ workon hg-dev
(hg-dev)
sjl at ecgtheow in ~/src/hg-crew-sjl on default
$ hg --version
Mercurial Distributed SCM (version 7956a823daa3)
Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> and others
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
(hg-dev)
sjl at ecgtheow in ~/src/hg-crew-sjl on default
$
```
Look at the version numbers. Notice how they changed?
**You can now use** `workon hg-dev` **to make the** `hg` **command run
Mercurial with your changes!**
This makes it simple to test your work as you go. I keep two terminal windows
open while working on the Mercurial source:
* One is in my local crew repository to diff, commit, etc with the standard
version of Mercurial.
* The other is in a test repository. I've run `workon hg-dev` to switch to my
modified version so I can try out my changes.
Get To Work!
------------
That's it for the initial setup. Now you can start adding all the wonderful
features you have in mind. A simple workflow might go something like this:
1. Open two terminal windows and use `workon hg-dev` in the second one to
switch to the virtual environment.
2. Make some changes to the Mercurial codebase.
3. Test your changes in the second terminal window.
4. Repeat 3 and 4, using the first terminal window to commit to the local
repository as you go.
Once you're finished with your shiny new feature, how do you get it into the
main Mercurial code so we can all benefit from it?
Modify the Test Suite
---------------------
Before you go off and submit a patch, you need to make sure it works with the
current tests. You can run the tests by going to the repository and using:
```text
cd tests
python run-tests.py
```
It's going to take a while, just like before. If you changed something that
modifies the output of a command it will probably break some of the existing
tests. That's alright, but you'll need to fix them to reflect your changes.
The simplest way to do this is to use the `--interactive` flag:
```text
python run-tests.py --interactive
```
Using `--interactive` will prompt you each time a test fails and ask if you
want to accept the new output as the "correct" output. This makes it simple to
update the existing tests to take your changes into account.
Obviously you should **only accept these updates if they make sense**. Pay
attention to the output and make sure you didn't accidentally break something!
Add to the Test Suite
----------------------
If you've implemented an entirely new feature (as opposed to just modifying an
existing one) you should add some tests of your own. This will make sure no
one else will inadvertently break whatever you've added.
There's a nice [guide][test-guide] to this on the Mercurial site. Follow it to
add some tests for your changes.
From what I've heard it's preferable to append to an existing set of tests (if
it makes sense) instead of adding a brand new test file — the tests run
pretty slowly and adding new files make them even slower.
[test-guide]: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/WritingTests#Writing_a_shell_script_test
Email Your Patches to the Mailing List
--------------------------------------
You've finally got your code working and updated the tests. It's time to share
your changes with the rest of the Mercurial developers.
If you want your patches to get accepted, you should take the time to read the
[guide to contributing changes][] and the [guide to making successful
patches][] on the Mercurial site. They're short but contain most of what you
need to know.
[guide to contributing changes]: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/ContributingChanges
[guide to making successful patches]: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/SuccessfulPatch
I prefer to use the [patchbomb][] extension to email the patches because it
takes care of the formatting for me. To enable and configure it you'll need to
make some additions to your `~/.hgrc` file:
```ini
[extensions]
hgext.patchbomb =
[email]
method = smtp from = Your Name <you@yourdomain.com>
[smtp]
host = smtp.youremailhost.com username = yourusername tls = True
```
You'll need to tweak those settings with your own email address, mail server,
and so on. Once that's done, you can have patchbomb package up your changes
and email them out:
```text
hg email --rev (your first revision):(your last revision)
```
The command will guide you through filling out some more information, and then
send out the patches. `hg help email` has a lot more information on how to use
it.
I usually email them to myself first just in case I mess up a revision number
and email six thousand changesets. Flooding my own inbox is much better than
flooding the list's.
[patchbomb]: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/PatchbombExtension
That's It, Now Go Contribute!
-----------------------------
That's about the extent of my knowledge on contributing to Mercurial. As I
said before, I've only done one patch so far, but I wanted to write this while
everything about setting up the environment was fresh in my mind.
If any of the other Mercurial developers would like to chime in and suggest
corrections or additions — or if anyone has any questions — I'll be happy to
update the post. I hope it's helpful!