Contributing code to midish

Using git

Midish sources are kept in a git repository, if you're making local changes to midish, git could help you update your copy, it never blows up your changes, rather it merges them in. Refer to guides to git on the web for more details.

To retrieve midish sources the following could be used:

git clone http://caoua.org/git/midish

then, each time you want to synchronize your copy you can run:

cd /foo/bar/midish
git pull

for instance to create a diff for the track.c file you modified:

cd /foo/bar/midish
git diff track.c >mydiff.diff

Modifying the sources

If you fixed a bug, you developed a new feature or changed an existing one, you may want your changes to be integrated in the main repository (so they are shared and maintained across future releases), then please take note of the following:

avoid features specific to a given operating system. The platform specific code should stay as small as possible.
try to follow coding style of the rest of the code, if you're using emacs, ``c-set-style bsd'' could help.
avoid non-standard C constructs, midish is supposed to compile with compilers other than gcc as well.
if you add a new feature or change the behaviour for an existing feature, make sure it doesn't break existing scripts. Don't forget to update the documentation and the regression tests too.
midish is supposed to work on slow machines, avoid slow code. Especially features that will slow down other features.
avoid making features optional or tunable. Everything should just work without customization.
avoid tricky code.

Submitting changes

Please send your changes by e-mail either to the mailing list or to alex@caoua.org as an unified diff in the e-mail body. Be careful about mailers mungling diffs, if unsure attach the diff.

be sure to submit diffs against the latest midish sources, use git to synchronize your sources
if possible, avoid mixing multiple logical changes into a single diff.
don't send incomplete diffs; don't suppose someone will finish the job you started.

Thanks!