CONTRIBUTING.md

How to contribute

Contributions are always very much appreciated. However, to make sure the process of accepting patches goes smoothly for everyone (especially for the maintainer), you should try to follow these few simple guidelines when you contribute:

1. Fork the repository.

2. Create a new branch based on the master branch (git checkout -b your_branch master). If your contribution is a bug fix, you should name your branch bugfix/xxx; for a feature, it should be feature/xxx. Otherwise, just use your good judgment. Consistent naming of branches is appreciated since it makes the output of git branch easier to understand at a single glance.

3. Do your modifications on that branch. Except for special cases, your contribution should include proper unit tests and documentation. Also, please try to follow the style guide below.

4. Make sure your modifications did not break anything by building and running the tests:

   mkdir build
   cmake -S . -B build
   cmake --build build --target check

5. Commit your changes. Your commit message should start with a one line short description of the modifications, with the details and explanations of your modifications following in subsequent paragraphs or bullet points. Please limit your lines to about 78 characters in commit messages, since it makes the output easier to read in git log. Also, starting your commit message with a tag describing the nature of the commit is nice, since it makes the commit history easier to skim through. For commits that do not change any functionality (e.g. refactoring or fixing typos), the [NFC] tag (No Functionality Change) can be used. Here's an example of an acceptable commit message:

   [Searchable] Refactor the interface
   
   - Rename elem to contains
   - Rename subset to is_subset, and make is_subset applicable in infix notation
   - Add the at_key method
   - operator[] is now bound to at_key instead of find
   

   When applicable, please squash adjacent wip commits into a single logical commit. If your contribution has several logical commits, it's fine.

6. Push the changes to your fork (git push origin your_branch).

7. Open a pull request against Hana's master branch. I will do my best to respond in a timely manner. I might discuss your patch and suggest some modifications, or I might amend your patch myself and ask you for feedback. You will always be given proper credit.

Style guide

I'm not going to write an exhaustive style guide, but here are a couple of points you should watch out for:

• Indent using 4 spaces.
• Do not leave trailing white spaces at the end of lines, and no more than a single newline at the end of a source file.
• Hana's #includes go first, then a blank line and system headers. #includes within each block should be sorted in alphabetical order.
• Use your own judgment and stick to the style of the surrounding code.