Horde Development Resources
===========================
Online resources for developing with Horde (including Horde Framework
API documentation) are available at:
http://dev.horde.org/
Hacking on Horde from CVS
=========================
Horde and its modules use CVS for source control. CVS is well-documented,
but the manual page assumes you already know how it works. An excellent
guide to getting started with CVS is _Open Source Development with CVS_
by Karl Fogel. It's published by Coriolis, and the technical part of the
book is available for free on the Web at
http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/
The paper version includes chapters on organizing and managing Open
Source development. You can obtain a CVS client for your operating
system at CVSHOME, at
http://www.cvshome.org/downloads.html
of them may be found at http://www.cyclic.com - they support CVS
commercially, even though it is an open source program.
You will need a CVS client to do any of the following (check out the Cyclic
homepage if you don't have one).
For those already familiar with CVS, the anonymous CVSROOT is:
:pserver:cvsread@anoncvs.horde.org:/repository
Downloading Horde modules from CVS
----------------------------------
You will want to do this if you want bleeding edge code.
1. Go to the directory you want to download the code to:
cd ~/work
2. Set CVSROOT to the location of the CVS repository. (You could also
pass cvs the name of the CVS root with the "-d" option.) Be
sure to note the colon (":") in front of "pserver".
(in sh, ksh, bash, zsh):
CVSROOT=:pserver:cvsread@anoncvs.horde.org:/repository
export CVSROOT
(in csh, tcsh):
setenv CVSROOT :pserver:cvsread@anoncvs.horde.org:/repository
3. Login to the anonymous CVS repository. When prompted for a
password, enter "horde".
cvs login
4. Check out the module you want to download from the repository.
Replace MODULE with horde, imp, turba, troll, and so forth.
(The "-z3" tells cvs to compress the data it sends over the network,
uncompressing it when you
cvs -z3 co MODULE
If you want to check out a particular branch of a module (for example,
the older STABLE_2_2 branch of IMP), include the branch tag like so,
replacing TAG with the name of the branch:
cvs -z3 co -r TAG MODULE
5. As you work with the software, you can periodically update your
tree to match the master tree at any time, from the top directory
of the module. Using "horde" as an example module:
cd ~/work/horde
cvs -z3 update
Obtaining a CVS account
-----------------------
If you're going to be a regular contributor to Horde, then you can
request a CVS account in order to commit your changes to the
repository yourself. (If you're only going to be contributing once in
a while, there truly is no need for you to have one, as posting your
changes to the application's mailing list will suffice to get your
changes reviewed and included.)
If you do get commit access to the CVS tree, you will have the ability
to mess some things up. Not for good, mind you, as CVS allows updates
to be backed off, but you still need to remember what you're doing and
be careful what you commit and when you commit it. Because of this, we
prefer that you submit your work to the mailing list for a while so we
can tell you know what you're doing.
If you're not a committer, the best way to submit a patch is to send
it either to the application's mailing list or to dev@lists.horde.org.
For more information on Horde mailing lists, see
http://www.horde.org/mail/
Committing changes to CVS
-------------------------
Once you have a CVS account, you will need to log into the CVS server
so it knows who you are and can grant you the appropriate rights to
work on the sources.
The CVSROOT is different for committers; instead of the repository
listed above, set CVSROOT to
:ext:USERNAME@cvs.horde.org:/repository
replacing USERNAME with your cvs username.
The committers' repository does not use pserver. You will need to have
ssh installed on your system, and have arranged with one of the core
developers to put your SSH key on the system. If you have not done
this, talk to one of the core developers.
To get cvs to use ssh, you will need to set the environment variable
CVS_RSH to "ssh" in your shell.
You do not need to do "cvs login"; you will be prompted for the
passphrase for your SSH key whenever you access the repository.
You may also wish to set the environment variable EDITOR to point to
your favorite text editor. This way when you commit software changes
and it asks you to enter a change description, you can do so in your
favorite editor.
Then, for work on developmental, bleeding-edge versions:
1) Check out the code by typing "cvs co MODULE"
2) Work on the code <hack, hack, hack>
3) Commit any changes with "cvs commit FILENAMES" in the directory the
files are in.
Sometimes, others will make changes and you will need to update your tree so
the changes show up in your local sources. You do this with the "cvs update"
command in the horde directory. Please be sure to update your tree regularly;
merging changes is considerably more work than running "cvs update".
To work with any tagged branch (to patch a stable release, for instance):
1) Check out the code with "cvs co -r TAG MODULE"
2) Work on the code <hack, hack, hack>
3) Commit any changes with "cvs commit FILENAMES" in the directory the
files are in.
If somebody else also makes changes to the labeled version, you can get them
in your local source tree with the "cvs update" command issued in the module
directory.
If you are done working with the labeled source branch, and would like
to move back into the bleeding-edge development source tree, you can
issue the command "cvs update -A" to update everything to the current
"HEAD" version.
(We used to document how to merge code from HEAD into a labeled branch here,
but since it was heavily peppered with "talk to core developers first",
it's been elided to prevent errors of experimentation. If you think you need
to do that, you have to talk to core developers anyhow -- they'll explain
how.)
Other CVS Notes
---------------
If you do end up getting a CVS account, here are some tips to help keep
things going smoothly:
1. Subscribe to the cvs@lists.horde.org and dev@lists.horde.org mailing
lists.
2. Be sure to modify the file docs/CHANGES to reflect the changes to the
code you are committing.
3. If you're planning on doing anything major, please let people know in
advance on the dev@ or application mailing lists as appropriate.
Developers need to communicate extensively in order to make sure everyone
knows what's going on. This is extremely important when you work on
key components.
4. Use the Bug Tracking System. Currently we are using Bugzilla to
keep track of bugs. All new submissions are being cc'd to the
cvs@lists.horde.org mailing list so that if we aren't paying
attention, we'll at least get mail about it. Using the Bugs database
helps us keep track of issues we are having and where we stand with
the product.
5. Remember to advance the library version whenever anything major is
changed.
Please send any comments or questions pertaining to this document to
core@horde.org.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1999 Ivan E. Moore II <rkrusty@tdyc.com>
Copyright 1999 Mike Hardy <mikeh@spark.com>
This code is licensed under the GNU Public License.
See the file COPYING in the top directory.
$Horde: horde/docs/HACKING,v 1.6 2003/08/29 21:56:51 jan Exp $
