Contributors guide¶
The goal of this page is to give you some guidance regarding how to make changes to the library and its documentation.
Here’s a brief overview of the process:
- Fork the repository
- Make changes
- Document the new features / changes you have made
- Commit and push to your fork
- Create a Merge request
- Read the comments on your merge request and make the necessary changes
The rest of the document gives some more details on the individual steps.
If anything is unclear, don’t hesitate to contact any lab assistant or create an issue describing the problem.
Forking the repository¶
The code is hosted on LiU’s gitlab. For instructions on how to fork a repository see Gitlab’s documentation.
This will result in your own copy of the repository, where you can make changes. This copy can be used as any other repository on gitlab, but has the additional feature of creating merge requests back to the original repository.
Making changes¶
This is done just as any other project. Please try to use the same code standard. Avoid making changes which breaks other student’s code.
All code related to binding the C++ code to Python can be found in the subdirectory python-api-src. The project uses pybind11 to make the bindings from C++ to Python, see their extensive documentation on how to use it.
The code is heavily based on the original CommandCenter, all code which originally comes from this library lies in the subdirectory src.
The source code for all additional dependencies (including pybind11) are registerd as git submodules in the subdirectory lib.
The system is built using cmake, see the file CMakeLists.txt in the project root.
Document the new features / changes you have made¶
The documentation can be found in the docs subdirectory. The documentation is done using Sphinx which auto-generates some parts of the documentation based on the generated Python library. For steps on how to build the documentation see the README file in the project root.
The documentation is written in reStructuredText, a quick-guide can be found here.
Note that documenting changes you make to the library is required to have them merged with the main repository.
Create a Merge request¶
A merge request can be created by going into your fork’s project page, selecting Merge Requests on the left-hand side and pressing the New merge request button.
The source branch should be branch which you have made your changes on and the target branch should be the master branch of course-starcraft/pycommandcenter.
Read the comments on your merge request and make the necessary changes¶
In this step someone will review your changes and make comments. These comments might ask you to make changes to the code or documentation. These changes must be done before the merge request is accepted. Therefore it is important to make merge requests several days before eventual deadlines.
Once the merge request has been accepted the code is now part of PyCommandCenter. Congratulations and thank you for your contribution to the project!