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 The topics are organized alphabetically.
12 -------------------------
13 autoconf & automake files
14 -------------------------
16 If you wish to change the `configure' script, the generated Makefile
17 or other related files, you'll need to first install GNU m4, available
18 from <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/m4/>, then GNU autoconf
19 (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/>) and GNU automake
20 (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake/>). Nmh is currently using a
21 minimum of autoconf 2.61 and automake 1.10.
23 Most of the configure-related files are automatically generated.
24 The only files you should need to manually edit are configure.ac
25 and any autoconf macros in the m4 directory. Don't, for instance,
26 edit config.h.in. Though it is an input file from the point of
27 view of the users (and the configure script) it is an output file
28 from the point of view of the developers (and the autoconf script).
30 If you wish to add a new autoconf macro, it should be placed in it's
31 own file and put in the m4 directory; aclocal will automatically pick
32 it up and automake will add it to the distribution target automatically.
34 If you wish to make changes to the Makefile, you will need to edit
35 Makefile.am. See the automake documentation if you need further help.
36 You should always check changes to Makefile.am by using "make distcheck".
38 Note that the automatically generated autotools files (such as config.h.in,
39 Makefile.in, and configure), are NOT kept in git. Thus, when you check out
40 a git tree, you need to run the autogen.sh script before you can build
50 Following is a list of nmh's directories along with a brief description of the
51 purpose of each one. Meanings are given for the abbreviations, but note that
52 these meanings are just informed guesses as to what the MH developers were
56 The top-level directory. Contains files like README and INSTALL.
59 Contains utility files for the `configure' process. Ordinarily nothing in
60 here needs to be messed with.
63 Contains more specialized documentation, such as this file and
67 Contains files, file templates, and scripts to generate files that will be
68 installed in the ${prefix}/etc directory. Stuff like replcomps.
71 Most of nmh's header (.h) files are kept not in the individual source
72 directories, but in this central location.
75 Contains all the input files that are processed to generate nmh's manual
79 "mts" stands for "Message Transfer Service". Source files specific to the
80 different MTSs go in the subdirectories.
83 When nmh is configured to just talk to an SMTP server over TCP/IP, the
84 source in this directory is compiled.
87 "sbr" stands for "subroutine(s)". For the most part, each source file in
88 this directory contains a single function with the same name as the source
89 file. These functions are of general use and are called from throughout
93 The num unit test suite.
96 "uip" stands for "User Interface Programs". Most nmh commands have a file
97 in this directory named <command>.c containing the code for that command
98 (e.g. repl.c). In some cases there is also an auxiliary file called
99 <command>sbr.c which contains additional subroutines called from <command>.c
100 (which would contain not much else besides main()).
107 As of December 2010, nmh has switched to using git for revision control
108 instead of CVS. While the topic of git is beyond the scope of this FAQ,
109 to get started with git & nmh, you can run the following command to checkout
112 % git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/nmh.git
114 That will create a workspace call nmh. To update that workspace
115 with changes to the master, cd to it and run:
120 -------------------------------------------------------
121 nmh-local functions to use in preference to OS versions
122 -------------------------------------------------------
124 For some system functions whose availability or behavior varies from OS to OS,
125 nmh conditionally uses a local definition with the same name as the OS function
126 (e.g. snprintf()). For other functions, developers need to avoid the OS
127 versions and always use the nmh-supplied function. Here is a list of such
130 OS function nmh-local version to use instead
131 =========== ================================
132 getpass() nmh_getpass()
139 To make a public release of nmh (we'll use version 1.0.4 and my mhost.com
140 account, danh, as examples here; the convention for release candidates
141 is to use something like "1.0.4-RC1"):
143 1. % echo 1.0.4 > VERSION
144 % date +"%e %B %Y" > DATE
145 (DATE should contain something like "30 December 2000")
147 2. % git commit VERSION DATE; git push
149 3. % git tag -a nmh-1_0_4 -m 'Releasing nmh-1_0_4.'
153 5. Untar nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz and `diff -r' it vs. your workspace. Make
154 sure no files got left out of the distribution that should be in
155 it (due to someone forgetting to update the DIST variables in the
158 6. If you have root access on your machine, it's good at this point to do:
160 % chown -R 0:0 nmh-1.0.4
161 % tar cvf nmh-1.0.4.tar nmh-1.0.4
164 If you leave the files in the archive as being owned by yourself, your UID
165 may coincide with one of a user on a machine where nmh is being installed,
166 making it possible for that user to Trojan the nmh code before the system
167 administrator finishes installing it.
169 7. Make sure your new tarball uncompresses and untars with no problem. Make
170 sure you can configure, make, and install nmh from it.
172 8. If all is well and your tarball is final, go back to your workspace and do:
174 % echo 1.0.4+dev > VERSION
176 9. % git commit VERSION; git push
178 10. If possible, make an MD5 hash and/or a PGP signature of nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz.
179 Assuming you have gpg set up, this should be:
180 % gpg --output nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz.sig --detach-sig nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz
182 You can verify the signature with
183 % gpg --verify nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz.sig nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz
185 11. Upload the files to savannah. First make sure they are mode 664 so
186 they will have the right permissions on the server end
187 (see https://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/SharedDownloadArea)
188 % chmod 664 nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz*
190 Then scp them across:
191 % scp -p nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz* youruser@dl.sv.nongnu.org:/releases/nmh/
193 12. Update the http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/ homepage. (It lives in the CVS
194 'webpages repository'; see https://savannah.nongnu.org/cvs/?group=nmh)
196 13. Add a news item to the savannah nmh page. You'll have to submit it first
197 and then separately approve it (under News->Manage).
199 14. Send the release announcement email to the following places:
200 nmh-workers@nongnu.org
201 nmh-announce@nongnu.org
202 exmh-users@redhat.com
203 exmh-workers@redhat.com
204 mh-e-users@lists.sourceforge.net
205 mh-users@ics.uci.edu *or* comp.mail.mh (there is a bidirectional gateway)
207 If the release fixes significant security holes, also send an announcement
208 to bugtraq@securityfocus.com. The exmh lists require you to be subscribed
209 in order to post. Note that you don't need to post separately to
210 comp.mail.mh, as the mh-users mailing list is apparently bidirectionally
213 Preferably, the announcement should contain the MD5 hash generated above,
214 and should be PGP-signed. It should include the URL for the tarball as
215 well as the URL of the website. It should contain a brief summary of
216 visible changes, as well as the URL of the git diff page that would show
217 a detailed list of changes. The changes between 1.5 and 1.4 would be
218 shown by [this is just a guess, I don't know anything about cgit, and
219 it assumes that we tag with nmh-x_x-release from now on]:
221 http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/nmh.git/diff/?h=nmh-1_5-release?h=nmh-1_4-release