solidity/docs/contributing.rst

############
Contributing
############

Help is always appreciated!

To get started, you can try :ref:`building-from-source` in order to familiarize
yourself with the components of Solidity and the build process. Also, it may be
useful to become well-versed at writing smart-contracts in Solidity.

In particular, we need help in the following areas:

* Improving the documentation
* Responding to questions from other users on `StackExchange
  <https://ethereum.stackexchange.com>`_ and the `Solidity Gitter
  <https://gitter.im/ethereum/solidity>`_
* Fixing and responding to `Solidity's GitHub issues
  <https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/issues>`_, especially those tagged as
  `up-for-grabs <https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3Aup-for-grabs>`_ which are
  meant as introductory issues for external contributors.

How to Report Issues
====================

To report an issue, please use the
`GitHub issues tracker <https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/issues>`_. When
reporting issues, please mention the following details:

* Which version of Solidity you are using
* What was the source code (if applicable)
* Which platform are you running on
* How to reproduce the issue
* What was the result of the issue
* What the expected behaviour is

Reducing the source code that caused the issue to a bare minimum is always
very helpful and sometimes even clarifies a misunderstanding.

Workflow for Pull Requests
==========================

In order to contribute, please fork off of the ``develop`` branch and make your
changes there. Your commit messages should detail *why* you made your change
in addition to *what* you did (unless it is a tiny change).

If you need to pull in any changes from ``develop`` after making your fork (for
example, to resolve potential merge conflicts), please avoid using ``git merge``
and instead, ``git rebase`` your branch.

Additionally, if you are writing a new feature, please ensure you write appropriate
Boost test cases and place them under ``test/``.

However, if you are making a larger change, please consult with the `Solidity Development Gitter channel
<https://gitter.im/ethereum/solidity-dev>`_ (different from the one mentioned above, this on is
focused on compiler and language development instead of language use) first.


Finally, please make sure you respect the `coding standards
<https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum/develop/CodingStandards.txt>`_
for this project. Also, even though we do CI testing, please test your code and
ensure that it builds locally before submitting a pull request.

Thank you for your help!

Running the compiler tests
==========================

Solidity includes different types of tests. They are included in the application
called ``soltest``. Some of them require the ``cpp-ethereum`` client in testing mode,
some others require ``libz3`` to be installed.

``soltest`` reads test contracts that are annotated with expected results
stored in ``./test/libsolidity/syntaxTests``. In order for soltest to find these
tests the root test directory has to be specified using the ``--testpath`` command
line option, e.g. ``./build/test/soltest -- --testpath ./test``.

To disable the z3 tests, use ``./build/test/soltest -- --no-smt --testpath ./test`` and
to run a subset of the tests that do not require ``cpp-ethereum``, use
``./build/test/soltest -- --no-ipc --testpath ./test``.

For all other tests, you need to install `cpp-ethereum <https://github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum/releases/download/solidityTester/eth>`_ and run it in testing mode: ``eth --test -d /tmp/testeth``.

Then you run the actual tests: ``./build/test/soltest -- --ipcpath /tmp/testeth/geth.ipc --testpath ./test``.

To run a subset of tests, filters can be used:
``soltest -t TestSuite/TestName -- --ipcpath /tmp/testeth/geth.ipc --testpath ./test``,
where ``TestName`` can be a wildcard ``*``.

Alternatively, there is a testing script at ``scripts/test.sh`` which executes all tests and runs
``cpp-ethereum`` automatically if it is in the path (but does not download it).

Travis CI even runs some additional tests (including ``solc-js`` and testing third party Solidity frameworks) that require compiling the Emscripten target.

Writing and running syntax tests
--------------------------------

As mentioned above, syntax tests are stored in individual contracts. These files must contain annotations, stating the expected result(s) of the respective test.
The test suite will compile and check them against the given expectations.

Example: ``./test/libsolidity/syntaxTests/double_stateVariable_declaration.sol``

::

    contract test {
        uint256 variable;
        uint128 variable;
    }
    // ----
    // DeclarationError: Identifier already declared.


The comments in the contract above are used to describe the expected compiler errors. The state variable ``variable`` was declared twice, which is not allowed.
This will result in a ``DeclarationError`` stating that the identifer was already declared.

The tool that is being used for those tests is called ``isoltest`` and can be found under ``./test/tools/``. It is an interactive tool which allows
editing of failing contracts using your prefered text editor. Let's try to break this test by removing the second declaration of ``variable``:

::

    contract test {
        uint256 variable;
    }
    // ----
    // DeclarationError: Identifier already declared.

Running ``./test/isoltest`` again will result in a test failure:

::

    syntaxTests/double_stateVariable_declaration.sol: FAIL
        Contract:
            contract test {
                uint256 variable;
            }

        Expected result:
            DeclarationError: Identifier already declared.
        Obtained result:
            Success


which prints the expected result next to the obtained result, but also provides a way to change edit / update / skip the current contract or to even quit.
``isoltest`` offers several options for failing tests:

- edit: ``isoltest`` will try to open the editor that was specified before using ``isoltest --editor /path/to/editor``. If no path was set, this will result in a runtime error. In case an editor was specified, this will open it such that the contract can be adjusted.
- update: Updates the contract under test. This will remove the annotation which contains the exception not met and runs this test again.
- skip: Skips the execution of this particular test.
- quit: Quits ``isoltest``.


.. note::

    Please choose a name for the contract file, that is self-explainatory in the sense of what is been tested, e.g. ``double_variable_declaration.sol``.
    Do not put more than one contract into a single file. ``isoltest`` is currently not able to recognize them individually.

Whiskers
========

*Whiskers* is a templating system similar to `Mustache <https://mustache.github.io>`_. It is used by the
compiler in various places to aid readability, and thus maintainability and verifiability, of the code.

The syntax comes with a substantial difference to Mustache: the template markers ``{{`` and ``}}`` are
replaced by ``<`` and ``>`` in order to aid parsing and avoid conflicts with :ref:`inline-assembly`
(The symbols ``<`` and ``>`` are invalid in inline assembly, while ``{`` and ``}`` are used to delimit blocks).
Another limitation is that lists are only resolved one depth and they will not recurse. This may change in the future.

A rough specification is the following:

Any occurrence of ``<name>`` is replaced by the string-value of the supplied variable ``name`` without any
escaping and without iterated replacements. An area can be delimited by ``<#name>...</name>``. It is replaced
by as many concatenations of its contents as there were sets of variables supplied to the template system,
each time replacing any ``<inner>`` items by their respective value. Top-level variables can also be used
inside such areas.