5 This file is intended to provide a few tips for anyone doing development
6 on mmh. Developers who learn things "the hard way" about the mmh codebase
7 (as opposed to local info best encoded in a comment) are encouraged to
8 share their wisdom here.
10 Absolute beginners should start reading docs/README.start-devel.
17 Following is a list of mmh's directories along with a brief description
18 of the purpose of each one. Meanings are given for the abbreviations,
19 but note that these meanings are just informed guesses as to what the
20 MH developers were thinking.
23 The top-level directory. Contains files like README and INSTALL.
26 Contains utility files for the `configure' process. Ordinarily
27 nothing in here needs to be messed with, but config/config.c is
28 very interesting to have a look at.
31 Contains more specialized documentation, such as this file and
35 Contains files, file templates, and scripts to generate files that
36 will be installed in the ${prefix}/etc directory. Stuff like
40 Most of mmh's header files are kept in this central location instead
41 of in the individual source directories.
44 Contains all the input files that are processed to generate mmh's
48 "sbr" stands for "subroutine(s)". For the most part, each source
49 file in this directory contains a single function with the same
50 name as the source file. These functions are of general use and
51 are called from throughout mmh.
54 "uip" stands for "User Interface Programs". Most mmh commands have a
55 file in this directory named <command>.c containing the code for that
56 command (e.g. repl.c). In some cases there is also an auxiliary file
57 called <command>sbr.c which contains additional subroutines called
61 ----------------------
62 version control system
63 ----------------------
65 As of December 2010, nmh has switched to using git for revision control
66 instead of CVS. Mmh has stick to git. While the topic of git is beyond
67 the scope of this FAQ, to get started with git and mmh, you can run the
68 following command to checkout the mmh repository:
70 % git clone http://git.marmaro.de/mmh
72 That will create a workspace called mmh. To update that workspace
82 If you wish to change the `configure' script or its related files,
83 you'll need to first install GNU m4 and GNU autoconf. Mmh is currently
84 using a minimum of autoconf 2.61.
86 Most of the configure-related files are automatically generated. The
87 only files you should need to manually edit are `acconfig.h' and
88 `configure.ac'. Don't, for instance, edit `config.h.in'. Though it is
89 an input file from the point of view of the users (and the configure
90 script) it is an output file from the point of view of the developers
91 (and the autoconf script).
93 Note that the automatically generated autoconf files (such as
94 `config.h.in', `stamp-h.in', and `configure'), are NOT kept in the
95 version control system. Thus, when you check out the source tree,
96 you need to run the `autogen.sh' script before you can build anything: