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. make distcheck passed?
18 4. man page and other documentation updated?
19 5. docs/pending-release-notes updated?
20 6. should commit message reference bug report?
21 7. update/close bug report (with commit id)?
25 -------------------------
26 autoconf & automake files
27 -------------------------
29 If you wish to change the `configure' script, the generated Makefile
30 or other related files, you'll need to first install GNU m4, available
31 from <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/m4/>, then GNU autoconf
32 (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/>) and GNU automake
33 (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake/>). Nmh is currently using a
34 minimum of autoconf 2.61 and automake 1.10.
36 Most of the configure-related files are automatically generated.
37 The only files you should need to manually edit are configure.ac
38 and any autoconf macros in the m4 directory. Don't, for instance,
39 edit config.h.in. Though it is an input file from the point of
40 view of the users (and the configure script) it is an output file
41 from the point of view of the developers (and the autoconf script).
43 If you wish to add a new autoconf macro, it should be placed in it's
44 own file and put in the m4 directory; aclocal will automatically pick
45 it up and automake will add it to the distribution target automatically.
47 If you wish to make changes to the Makefile, you will need to edit
48 Makefile.am. See the automake documentation if you need further help.
49 You should always check changes to Makefile.am by using "make distcheck".
51 Note that the automatically generated autotools files (such as config.h.in,
52 Makefile.in, and configure), are NOT kept in git. Thus, when you check out
53 a git tree, you need to run the autogen.sh script before you can build
63 Following is a list of nmh's directories along with a brief description of the
64 purpose of each one. Meanings are given for the abbreviations, but note that
65 these meanings are just informed guesses as to what the MH developers were
69 The top-level directory. Contains files like README and INSTALL.
72 Contains utility files for the `configure' process. Ordinarily nothing in
73 here needs to be messed with.
76 Contains more specialized documentation, such as this file and
80 Contains files, file templates, and scripts to generate files that will be
81 installed in the ${prefix}/etc directory. Stuff like replcomps.
84 Most of nmh's header (.h) files are kept not in the individual source
85 directories, but in this central location.
88 Contains all the input files that are processed to generate nmh's manual
92 "mts" stands for "Message Transfer Service". Source files specific to the
93 different MTSs go in the subdirectories.
96 When nmh is configured to just talk to an SMTP server over TCP/IP, the
97 source in this directory is compiled.
100 "sbr" stands for "subroutine(s)". For the most part, each source file in
101 this directory contains a single function with the same name as the source
102 file. These functions are of general use and are called from throughout
106 The num unit test suite.
109 "uip" stands for "User Interface Programs". Most nmh commands have a file
110 in this directory named <command>.c containing the code for that command
111 (e.g. repl.c). In some cases there is also an auxiliary file called
112 <command>sbr.c which contains additional subroutines called from <command>.c
113 (which would contain not much else besides main()).
120 As of December 2010, nmh has switched to using git for revision control
121 instead of CVS. While the topic of git is beyond the scope of this FAQ,
122 to get started with git & nmh, you can run the following command to checkout
125 % git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/nmh.git
127 That will create a workspace call nmh. To update that workspace
128 with changes to the master, cd to it and run:
133 -------------------------------------------------------
134 nmh-local functions to use in preference to OS versions
135 -------------------------------------------------------
137 For some system functions whose availability or behavior varies from OS to OS,
138 nmh conditionally uses a local definition with the same name as the OS function
139 (e.g. snprintf()). For other functions, developers need to avoid the OS
140 versions and always use the nmh-supplied function. Here is a list of such
143 OS function nmh-local version to use instead
144 =========== ================================
145 getpass() nmh_getpass()
152 To make a public release of nmh (we'll use version 1.5 as the example
153 here; the convention for release candidates is to use something like
156 1. % echo 1.5 > VERSION
157 % date +"%e %B %Y" > DATE
158 (DATE should contain something like "30 December 2000")
160 2. % git commit VERSION DATE; git push
162 3. % git tag -a 1.5 -m 'Releasing nmh-1.5.'
164 Note that the new convention for tagging is to simply tag with the
165 version number (tag formats in the past have varied).
169 If you want to check the distribution build with some particular
170 configure options, set the DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS variable.
173 % make distcheck DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS=--with-cyrus-sasl
175 5. If all is well and your tarball is final, go back to your workspace and do:
177 % echo 1.5+dev > VERSION
179 6. % git commit VERSION; git push
181 7. Upload the distribution file to savannah. You can automate this process
184 % make upload SAVANNAH_USERNAME=username
186 This will automatically call gpg to sign the release. You can bypass
187 this step by setting the SKIP_GPG_SIG variable.
189 8. Update the http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/ homepage. (It lives in the CVS
190 'webpages repository'; see https://savannah.nongnu.org/cvs/?group=nmh)
192 9. Add a news item to the savannah nmh page. You'll have to submit it first
193 and then separately approve it (under News->Manage).
195 10. Send the release announcement email to the following places:
196 nmh-workers@nongnu.org
197 nmh-announce@nongnu.org
198 exmh-users@redhat.com
199 exmh-workers@redhat.com
200 mh-e-users@lists.sourceforge.net
202 If the release fixes significant security holes, also send an announcement
203 to bugtraq@securityfocus.com. The exmh lists require you to be subscribed
204 in order to post. Note that you don't need to post separately to
205 comp.mail.mh, as the mh-users mailing list is apparently bidirectionally
208 Preferably, the announcement should contain the MD5 hash generated above,
209 and should be PGP-signed. It should include the URL for the tarball as
210 well as the URL of the website. It should contain a brief summary of
211 visible changes, as well as the URL of the git diff page that would show
212 a detailed list of changes. The changes between 1.5 and 1.4 would be
213 shown by [this is just a guess, I don't know anything about cgit, and
214 it assumes that we tag with nmh-x_x-release from now on]:
216 http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/nmh.git/diff/?h=nmh-1_5-release?h=nmh-1_4-release