Contributing

Thank you for considering contributing to Modules!

Support questions

Please use the modules-interest mailing list for questions. Do not use the issue tracker for this.

Asking for new features

Please submit your new feature wishes first to the modules-interest mailing list. Discussion will help to clarify your needs and sometimes the wanted feature may already be available.

Reporting issues

  • Describe what you expected to happen.
  • If possible, include a minimal, complete, and verifiable example to help us identify the issue.
  • Describe what actually happened. Run the module command in --debug mode and include all the debug output obtained in your report.
  • List your Modules and Tcl versions.
  • Provide the name and content of the modulefiles you try to manipulate.

Submitting patches

  • Whether your patch is supposed to solve a bug or add a new feature, please include tests. In case of a bug, explain clearly under which circumstances it happens and make sure the test fails without your patch.
  • If you are not yet familiar with the git command and GitHub, please read the don't be afraid to commit tutorial.

Start coding

Running the tests

Run the basic test suite with:

make test

This only runs the tests for the current environment. Travis-CI and AppVeyor will run the full suite when you submit your pull request.

Running test coverage

Generating a report of lines that do not have test coverage can indicate where to start contributing or what your tests should cover for the code changes you submit.

Run make testcoverage which will automatically setup the Nagelfar Tcl code coverage tool in your modules development directory. Then the full testsuite will be run in coverage mode and a modulecmd.tcl_m annotated script will be produced:

make testcoverage
# then open modulecmd.tcl_m and look for ';# Not covered' lines

Building the docs

Build the docs in the doc directory using Sphinx:

cd doc
make html

Open _build/html/index.html in your browser to view the docs.

Read more about Sphinx.

Coding conventions

  • Maximum line length is 78 characters

  • Use 3 spaces to indent code (do not use tab character)

  • Adopt Tcl minimal escaping style

  • Procedure names: lowerCameCase

  • Variable names: nocaseatall

  • Curly brace and square bracket placement:

    if {![info exists ::g_already_report]} {
       set ::g_already_report 1
    }
    

Emacs settings for coding conventions

This is an example emacs configuration that adheres to the first two coding conventions. You may wish to add this to your .emacs or .emacs.d/ to modify your tcl-mode:

(add-hook 'tcl-mode-hook
   (lambda ()
     (setq indent-tabs-mode nil)
     (setq tcl-indent-level 3)
     (setq tcl-continued-indent-level 3)
     (font-lock-add-keywords nil '(("^[^\n]\\{79\\}\\(.*\\)$" 1
                                    font-lock-warning-face prepend)))))

Submitting installation recipes

  • If you want to share your installation tips and tricks, efficient ways you have to write or organize your modulefiles or some extension you made to the module command please add a recipe to the cookbook section of the documentation.
  • Create a directory under doc/example and put there the extension code or example modulefiles your recipe is about.
  • Describe this recipe through a reStructuredText document in doc/source/cookbook. It is suggested to have an Implementation, an Installation and an Usage example sections in that document to get as much as possible the same document layout across recipes.
  • Submit a patch with all the above content.