Contributing guidelines

The development workflow changes notably after ​migration from Subversion to git (GitHub).

The repo is here: ​https://github.com/OSGeo/grass

Important changes:

• direct committing to "master" (former "trunk") is a no-go and disabled
• hence: you will create a feature branch and open a pull request for a change
  • Rationale: pull requests are the perfect platform to discuss/improve changes before merging.
  • also applies to core developers (to be discussed)

Workflow

• fork the GRASS GIS repository, and create feature branch(es) with the changes, and suggest your changes as pull requests.

Fork OSGeo/gdal from github UI, and then

Workflow for core developers

Here no fork needed but create feature branch(es) on master (to be discussed; GDAL always forks)

First fork in the GitHub UI.

Then:

git clone https://github.com/OSGeo/grass
cd grass/

# <make local source code changes>
vim ...

# fetch all branches from all remotes
git fetch --all

# list existing branches:
git branch -a

# create new local branch (pick a new name for feature_branch_name)
git checkout -b $feature_branch_name

# list local changes
git status
git add file1.c file2.py ...
git commit -m 'my change with reasonable explanation...'

# push feature branch to origin, i.e. original GRASS GIS repo master
git push origin $feature_branch_name
# create pull request in GitHub Web interface (the link is shown in
the terminal)

# during PR review phase, make more local changes if needed
git add .
git commit -m 'my second change'
git push origin $feature_branch_name
# ..... will be added to existing pull request

NOTE: for different pull requests, simply create different feature branches.

Workflow for external contributors

• to be discussed -

First fork the GRASS GIS repo in the GitHub web interface.

You clone the GRASS GIS repo and add the fork as an additional remote (or the other way around), this makes merging changes from the GRASS GIS repo easier.

# create fork via GitHub Web interface

# checkout your fork
git clone $my_for_url

# all steps see above, core dev section
...

# go to repo dir
cd grass

# add your fork as 
git remote add github https://github.com/<username>/grass.git
git remote set-url --push github ssh://git@github.com/<username>/grass.git

git push github <feature-branch>

# push feature branch to own fork repo of GRASS GIS
git push origin $feature_branch_name   # here: origin is fork repo

# create pull request in GitHub Web interface (the link is shown conveniently in the terminal)

This way origin is the authoritative source for the code, and additional remotes are forks.

Keep your feature branch up to date

[from ​https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#working-with-a-feature-branch]

You may need to resynchronize against master if you need some bugfix or new capability that has been added since you created your branch

git fetch origin
git rebase origin/master

Review of pull requests

In the review phase, PRs can be commented and modified.

TODO add more

Merging of pull requests

The CI should run successfully for every commit (chunk of commits in PR to be exact) before it goes into the respective branch.

Backporting to release branches

TODO

See also ​https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#backporting-bugfixes-from-master-to-a-stable-branch

Further reading

• Git Cheatsheet: ​http://ndpsoftware.com/git-cheatsheet.html#loc=workspace; (click on a field to see the related git commands)
• GDAL contributing: ​https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md