CONTRIBUTING


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Contributing to the Open Dataplane API (ODP)

The Open Dataplane API follows the linux kernel coding style [1] and code
submission process [2], albeit patch submissions are to be submitted to the
linaro-networking mailing list [3] (not LKML, etc.).

To certify you wrote the code, or otherwise have the right to pass it
on (presumably from a compatibly licensed project), we use the "Developer's
Certificate of Origin" (see [2]).  Using this sign-off process, we are able to
keep track of compliance to our license (see LICENSE file).

There are tools we use to maintain CodingStyle and other good programming
practice consistency, including type-checking without overuse of casts.

(a) perform a one-time setup for the tools:

checkpatch:

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git

semantic parser 'sparse' [4]:

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/devel/sparse/sparse.git
cd sparse
make
export PATH=$PATH:$PWD

(b) when building, use sparse to check for stricter type checking than the
compiler:

make CC=cgcc

[TODO: update for cross-building, endianness checks]

(c) Prior to submission, to style-check the patch 'file.patch', run:

${PATH_TO_LINUX}/scripts/checkpatch.pl --no-tree --strict file.patch


[1] https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/CodingStyle
[2] https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
[3] https://groups.google.com/a/linaro.org/forum/#!forum/linaro-networking
[4] https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/sparse.txt