5 This file is intended to provide a few tips for anyone doing development on nmh.
6 Developers who learn things "the hard way" about the nmh codebase (as opposed to
7 local info best encoded in a comment) are encouraged to share their wisdom here.
9 Following a commit checklist, the topics are organized alphabetically.
17 3. man page and other documentation updated?
18 4. docs/pending-release-notes updated?
19 5. should commit message reference bug report?
20 6. update/close bug report (with commit id)?
24 -------------------------
25 autoconf & automake files
26 -------------------------
28 If you wish to change the `configure' script, the generated Makefile
29 or other related files, you'll need to first install GNU m4, available
30 from <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/m4/>, then GNU autoconf
31 (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/>) and GNU automake
32 (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake/>). Nmh is currently using a
33 minimum of autoconf 2.61 and automake 1.10.
35 Most of the configure-related files are automatically generated.
36 The only files you should need to manually edit are configure.ac
37 and any autoconf macros in the m4 directory. Don't, for instance,
38 edit config.h.in. Though it is an input file from the point of
39 view of the users (and the configure script) it is an output file
40 from the point of view of the developers (and the autoconf script).
42 If you wish to add a new autoconf macro, it should be placed in it's
43 own file and put in the m4 directory; aclocal will automatically pick
44 it up and automake will add it to the distribution target automatically.
46 If you wish to make changes to the Makefile, you will need to edit
47 Makefile.am. See the automake documentation if you need further help.
48 You should always check changes to Makefile.am by using "make distcheck".
50 Note that the automatically generated autotools files (such as config.h.in,
51 Makefile.in, and configure), are NOT kept in git. Thus, when you check out
52 a git tree, you need to run the autogen.sh script before you can build
62 Following is a list of nmh's directories along with a brief description of the
63 purpose of each one. Meanings are given for the abbreviations, but note that
64 these meanings are just informed guesses as to what the MH developers were
68 The top-level directory. Contains files like README and INSTALL.
71 Contains utility files for the `configure' process. Ordinarily nothing in
72 here needs to be messed with.
75 Contains more specialized documentation, such as this file and
79 Contains files, file templates, and scripts to generate files that will be
80 installed in the ${prefix}/etc directory. Stuff like replcomps.
83 Most of nmh's header (.h) files are kept not in the individual source
84 directories, but in this central location.
87 Contains all the input files that are processed to generate nmh's manual
91 "mts" stands for "Message Transfer Service". Source files specific to the
92 different MTSs go in the subdirectories.
95 When nmh is configured to just talk to an SMTP server over TCP/IP, the
96 source in this directory is compiled.
99 "sbr" stands for "subroutine(s)". For the most part, each source file in
100 this directory contains a single function with the same name as the source
101 file. These functions are of general use and are called from throughout
105 The num unit test suite.
108 "uip" stands for "User Interface Programs". Most nmh commands have a file
109 in this directory named <command>.c containing the code for that command
110 (e.g. repl.c). In some cases there is also an auxiliary file called
111 <command>sbr.c which contains additional subroutines called from <command>.c
112 (which would contain not much else besides main()).
119 As of December 2010, nmh has switched to using git for revision control
120 instead of CVS. While the topic of git is beyond the scope of this FAQ,
121 to get started with git & nmh, you can run the following command to checkout
124 % git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/nmh.git
126 That will create a workspace call nmh. To update that workspace
127 with changes to the master, cd to it and run:
132 -------------------------------------------------------
133 nmh-local functions to use in preference to OS versions
134 -------------------------------------------------------
136 For some system functions whose availability or behavior varies from OS to OS,
137 nmh conditionally uses a local definition with the same name as the OS function
138 (e.g. snprintf()). For other functions, developers need to avoid the OS
139 versions and always use the nmh-supplied function. Here is a list of such
142 OS function nmh-local version to use instead
143 =========== ================================
144 getpass() nmh_getpass()
151 To make a public release of nmh (we'll use version 1.5 as the example
152 here; the convention for release candidates is to use something like
155 1. % echo 1.5 > VERSION
156 % date +"%e %B %Y" > DATE
157 (DATE should contain something like "30 December 2000")
159 2. % git commit VERSION DATE; git push
161 3. % git tag -a 1.5 -m 'Releasing nmh-1.5.'
163 Note that the new convention for tagging is to simply tag with the
164 version number (tag formats in the past have varied).
168 If you want to check the distribution build with some particular
169 configure options, set the DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS variable.
172 % make distcheck DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS=--with-cyrus-sasl
174 5. If all is well and your tarball is final, go back to your workspace and do:
176 % echo 1.5+dev > VERSION
178 6. % git commit VERSION; git push
180 7. Upload the distribution file to savannah. You can automate this process
183 % make upload SAVANNAH_USERNAME=username
185 This will automatically call gpg to sign the release. You can bypass
186 this step by setting the SKIP_GPG_SIG variable.
188 8. Update the http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/ homepage. (It lives in the CVS
189 'webpages repository'; see https://savannah.nongnu.org/cvs/?group=nmh)
191 9. Add a news item to the savannah nmh page. You'll have to submit it first
192 and then separately approve it (under News->Manage).
194 10. Send the release announcement email to the following places:
195 nmh-workers@nongnu.org
196 nmh-announce@nongnu.org
197 exmh-users@redhat.com
198 exmh-workers@redhat.com
199 mh-e-users@lists.sourceforge.net
201 If the release fixes significant security holes, also send an announcement
202 to bugtraq@securityfocus.com. The exmh lists require you to be subscribed
203 in order to post. Note that you don't need to post separately to
204 comp.mail.mh, as the mh-users mailing list is apparently bidirectionally
207 Preferably, the announcement should contain the MD5 hash generated above,
208 and should be PGP-signed. It should include the URL for the tarball as
209 well as the URL of the website. It should contain a brief summary of
210 visible changes, as well as the URL of the git diff page that would show
211 a detailed list of changes. The changes between 1.5 and 1.4 would be
212 shown by [this is just a guess, I don't know anything about cgit, and
213 it assumes that we tag with nmh-x_x-release from now on]:
215 http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/nmh.git/diff/?h=nmh-1_5-release?h=nmh-1_4-release