These notes intend to help people working on the checked-out sources. They don't apply when you are building from a distribution tarball. If you want to submit a patch, please start from checked-out sources rather than the source tarball. Prerequisites ============= * git (to check out both findutils and gnulib). * A C compiler, linker and software development libraries (the standard C library). Any compiler compliant with the 1990 ISO C standard running on a POSIX system should work. * GNU Autoconf * GNU Automake * GNU m4 * GNU gettext * GNU Dejagnu Dejagnu is in fact optional, but it's strongly recommended, since it is needed to run findutils' test suite (which is how you know that find works once it is built on your system). The configure program should tell you if you try to use a version of one of these tools which is not of a recent enough version. The file tool-versions.txt indicates which version of each tool the current release was built and tested with. This is included in the tar-file releases, but it's not checked in to git. Use the latest upstream sources =============================== 1. Check out the findutils code git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/findutils This will download the whole repository, it's about 16MB once fetched. If you already have a copy you can refresh it with: git checkout master (to switch to your copy of the master branch) git pull (to collect and merge changes) 2. Generate a gnulib installation within the findutils source tree Change your working directory to the findutils source directory (that is, the directory containing this file). Then run the following command:- ./bootstrap This command will use git to check out the version of gnulib which is intended to work with the findutils source you already have (gnulib is used as a git submodule). The gnulib code itself is left in the directory "gnulib". The "gl" directory contains just the gnulib files that findutils needs during the build process. This will also run Autoconf and Automake to generate the "configure" script and "Makefile.in" files. 3. Run "./configure" and "make" in the normal way. If you have GNU libintl installed, you can just run "./configure". Otherwise, run "./configure --disable-nls". You are now at the point where your local directory looks just like it would after building a source release, except that your copy is more up-to-date. *Before* you commit changes =========================== In this project, we much prefer patches that automatically record authorship. That is important not just to give credit where due, but also from a legal standpoint (see below). To create author-annotated patches with git, you must first tell git who you are. That information is best recorded in your ~/.gitconfig file. Edit that file, creating it if needed, and put your name and email address in place of these example values: [user] name = Joe X. User email = joe.user@example.com Required format for check-in messages ===================================== We use a specific style for check-in messages. See "git log" for examples. The format corresponds to the standard GNU ChangeLog format, but without date & author headers (since git provides this data) and without a left margin (since there are no headers). --- example begins --- Don't overflow sig_atomic_t for --max-procs. * xargs/xargs.c (__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS): Define __STDC_LIMIT_MACROS in order to ensure that defines the SIG_ATOMIC_MAX macro, which we need. (MAX_PROC_MAX): Define this as the maximum allowed value of proc_max. (main): Show the value of MAX_PROC_MAX for --show-limits. (increment_proc_max): Don't increment proc_max beyond MAX_PROC_MAX. --- example ends --- There are several things to notice about this checkin message. Most importantly, it begins with a single line summary of the whole change. This needs to be short. It would be used as the subject line of patches mailed by "git send-email". Some people begin that line with a one-word tag indicating what is affected (for example find: for changes to find, doc: to changes to the documentation, maint: for changes to the maintainer automation and so forth). All changes to a file are grouped together in an entry which begins with an asterisk (*) and the file name. The name of the modified function (if any) follows immediately in parentheses followed by a colon. If you're modifying a file for which "function" isn't the logical unit of organisation, use whatever seems most useful. For example when modifying the Texinfo source, use the section name. After the colon, describe the change you made to that function. If you made a related change mention the places you made that change, too. If you made many individually small changes, you can summarise these if they're not individually interesting. For example you could just say "Update all callers to remove this function argument". If that change spans several files, mention the other files modified. Note for maintainers: Prior to pushing a commit in the name of someone else to the public Git repository, please check if that person has undergone the "Copyright assignment" process for GNU findutils described below, or - in case of a trivial change (<10 lines, cumulatively with all their previous contributions) - document that such paperwork is not required by adding this line to the commit message: Copyright-paperwork-exempt: Yes Making commits locally ====================== You will normally find it much easier to work on a branch. This allows you to maintain your changes and test them without being affected by changes on the trunk. To Make a "topic" branch for your change, do this: git branch my-topic git checkout my-topic You can then work on your branch as normal. To update your local repository, do this: git checkout master git pull Then, rebase your topic branch to take into account the upstream changes you just pulled: git checkout my-topic git rebase master There are some useful checks that git commit hooks will do for you, it's a good idea to enable these: mv .git/hooks/pre-commit.sample .git/hooks/pre-commit Submitting patches ================== If you plan to submit changes to findutils, please make sure you have read the GNU coding standard (https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/). Some common things you might have forgotten to do are: - document your change in both the manual pages and the Texinfo file - re-run the test suite (with Dejagnu installed!) - add a test case for the bug you're fixing or feature you're adding - mention your fix or change (if it's significant) in the NEWS file - commit using a descriptive commit message If you have patches, please generate them with "git format-patch" and mail them to these addresses: bug-findutils@gnu.org, findutils-patches@gnu.org Here is a complete session # set up your topic branch git checkout master git pull git branch my-topic git checkout my-topic # update the code, documentation, test suite and change log, run tests emacs xargs/xargs.c emacs doc/find.texi xargs/xargs.1 emacs xargs/testsuite/Makefile.am xargs/testsuite/xargs.gnu/blah.exp make check emacs NEWS # make sure you didn't break anything make syntax-check make distcheck # commit the change and send the patches. git add -u git commit git rebase master mkdir /tmp/patches git format-patch -o /tmp/patches master..HEAD git send-email --compose \ --to bug-findutils@gnu.org \ --cc findutils-patches@gnu.org /tmp/patches Copyright assignment ==================== If your change is significant (i.e., if it adds more than ~10 lines), then you'll have to have a copyright assignment on file with the FSF. Since that involves first an email exchange between you and the FSF, and then the exchange (FSF to you, then back) of an actual sheet of paper with your signature on it, and finally, some administrative processing in Boston, the process can take a few weeks (for contributors in some geographies, this can all be done electronically, saving a lot of time). The forms to choose from are in gnulib's doc/Copyright/ directory. If you want to assign a single change, you should use the file, doc/Copyright/request-assign.changes: https://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gnulib.git;a=blob;f=doc/Copyright/request-assign.changes;hb=HEAD If you would like to assign past and future contributions to a project, you'd use doc/Copyright/request-assign.future: https://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gnulib.git;a=blob;f=doc/Copyright/request-assign.future;hb=HEAD You may make assignments for up to four projects at a time. In case you're wondering why we bother with all of this, read this: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html ======================================================================== Copyright (C) 2009-2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.