xref: /PHP-5.5/README.GIT-RULES (revision 8f1baa6e)
1====================
2  Git Commit Rules
3====================
4
5This is the first file you should be reading when contributing code via Git.
6We'll assume you're basically familiar with Git, but feel free to post
7your questions on the mailing list. Please have a look at
8http://git-scm.com/ for more detailed information on Git.
9
10PHP is developed through the efforts of a large number of people.
11Collaboration is a Good Thing(tm), and Git lets us do this. Thus, following
12some basic rules with regards to Git usage will::
13
14   a. Make everybody happier, especially those responsible for maintaining
15      PHP itself.
16
17   b. Keep the changes consistently well documented and easily trackable.
18
19   c. Prevent some of those 'Oops' moments.
20
21   d. Increase the general level of good will on planet Earth.
22
23Having said that, here are the organizational rules::
24
25   1. Respect other people working on the project.
26
27   2. Discuss any significant changes on the list before committing and get
28      confirmation from the release manager for the given branch.
29
30   3. Look at EXTENSIONS file to see who is the primary maintainer of
31      the code you want to contribute to.
32
33   4. If you "strongly disagree" about something another person did, don't
34      start fighting publicly - take it up in private email.
35
36   5. If you don't know how to do something, ask first!
37
38   6. Test your changes before committing them. We mean it. Really.
39      To do so use "make test".
40
41   7. For development use the --enable-maintainer-zts switch to ensure your
42      code handles TSRM correctly and doesn't break for those who need that.
43
44Currently we have the following branches in use::
45
46  master    The active development branch.
47
48  PHP-5.6   Is used to release the PHP 5.6.x series. This is a current
49            stable version and is open for bugfixes only.
50
51  PHP-5.5   Is used to release the PHP 5.5.x series. This is an old
52            stable version and is open for security fixes only.
53
54  PHP-5.4   Is used to release the PHP 5.4.x series. This is an old
55            stable version and is open for security fixes only.
56
57  PHP-5.3   This branch is closed.
58
59  PHP-5.2   This branch is closed.
60
61  PHP-5.1   This branch is closed.
62
63  PHP-4.4   This branch is closed.
64
65  PHP-X.Y.Z These branches are used for the release managers for tagging
66            the releases, hence they are closed to the general public.
67
68The next few rules are more of a technical nature::
69
70   1. All changes should first go to the lowest branch (i.e. 5.6) and then
71      get merged up to all other branches. If a change is not needed for
72      later branches (i.e. fixes for features which where dropped from later
73      branches) an empty merge should be done.
74
75   2. All news updates intended for public viewing, such as new features,
76      bug fixes, improvements, etc., should go into the NEWS file of *any
77      stable release* version with the given change. In other words,
78      news about a bug fix which went into PHP-5.4, PHP-5.5 and master
79      should be noted in both PHP-5.4/NEWS and PHP-5.5/NEWS but
80      not master, which is not a public released version yet.
81
82   3. Do not commit multiple file and dump all messages in one commit. If you
83      modified several unrelated files, commit each group separately and
84      provide a nice commit message for each one. See example below.
85
86   4. Do write your commit message in such a way that it makes sense even
87      without the corresponding diff. One should be able to look at it, and
88      immediately know what was modified. Definitely include the function name
89      in the message as shown below.
90
91   5. In your commit messages, keep each line shorter than 80 characters. And
92      try to align your lines vertically, if they wrap. It looks bad otherwise.
93
94   6. If you modified a function that is callable from PHP, prepend PHP to
95      the function name as shown below.
96
97
98The format of the commit messages is pretty simple.
99
100<max 79 characters short description>\n
101\n
102<long description, 79 chars per line>
103\n
104
105An Example from the git project (commit 2b34e486bc):
106
107pack-objects: Fix compilation with NO_PTHREDS
108
109It looks like commit 99fb6e04 (pack-objects: convert to use
110parse_options(), 2012-02-01) moved the #ifdef NO_PTHREDS around but
111hasn't noticed that the 'arg' variable no longer is available.
112
113If you fix some bugs, you should note the bug ID numbers in your
114commit message. Bug ID should be prefixed by "#" for easier access to
115bug report when developers are browsing CVS via LXR or Bonsai.
116
117Example::
118
119  Fixed bug #14016 (pgsql notice handler double free crash bug.)
120
121When you change the NEWS file for a bug fix, then please keep the bugs
122sorted in decreasing order under the fixed version.
123
124You can use OpenGrok (http://lxr.php.net/) and gitweb (http://git.php.net/)
125to look at PHP Git repository in various ways.
126
127
128For further information on the process and further details please refer to
129https://wiki.php.net/vcs/gitworkflow and https://wiki.php.net/vcs/gitfaq
130
131Happy hacking,
132
133PHP Team
134