1 // This file is part of the Doxygen Developer Manual
2 /** @page patchguide Patch Guidelines
4 \attention You can't send patches to the mailing list anymore at all. Nowadays
5 you are expected to send patches to the OpenOCD Gerrit GIT server for a
8 \attention If you already have a Gerrit account and want to try a
9 different sign in method, please first sign in as usually, press your
10 name in the upper-right corner, go to @a Settings, select @a
11 Identities pane, press <em>Link Another Identity</em> button. In case
12 you already have duplicated accounts, ask administrators for manual
15 \attention If you're behind a corporate wall with http only access to the
16 world, you can still use these instructions!
18 @section gerrit Submitting patches to the OpenOCD Gerrit server
20 OpenOCD is to some extent a "self service" open source project, so to
21 contribute, you must follow the standard procedures to have the best
22 possible chance to get your changes accepted.
24 The procedure to create a patch is essentially:
28 - send the changes to the Gerrit server for review
29 - correct the patch and re-send it according to review feedback
31 Your patch (or commit) should be a "good patch": focus it on a single
32 issue, and make it easily reviewable. Don't make
33 it so large that it's hard to review; split large
34 patches into smaller ones (this will also help
35 to track down bugs later). All patches should
36 be "clean", which includes preserving the existing
37 coding style and updating documentation as needed. When adding a new
38 command, the corresponding documentation should be added to
39 @c doc/openocd.texi in the same commit. OpenOCD runs on both Little
40 Endian and Big Endian hosts so the code can't count on specific byte
41 ordering (in other words, must be endian-clean).
43 There are several additional methods of improving the quality of your
46 - Runtime testing with Valgrind Memcheck
48 This helps to spot memory leaks, undefined behaviour due to
49 uninitialized data or wrong indexing, memory corruption, etc.
51 - Clang Static Analyzer
53 Using this tool uncovers many different kinds of bugs in C code,
54 with problematic execution paths fully explained. It is a part of
55 standard Clang installation.
57 To generate a report, run this in the OpenOCD source directory:
59 mkdir build-scanbuild; cd build-scanbuild
60 scan-build ../configure
61 scan-build make CFLAGS="-std=gnu99 -I. -I../../jimtcl"
64 - Runtime testing with sanitizers
66 Both GCC and LLVM/Clang include advanced instrumentation options to
67 detect undefined behaviour and many kinds of memory
68 errors. Available with @c -fsanitize=* command arguments.
72 mkdir build-sanitizers; cd build-sanitizers
73 ../configure CC=clang CFLAGS="-fno-omit-frame-pointer \
74 -fsanitize=address -fsanitize=undefined -ggdb3"
76 export ASAN_OPTIONS=detect_stack_use_after_return=1
77 src/openocd -s ../tcl -f /path/to/openocd.cfg
80 - Sparse Static Analyzer
82 Using this tool allows identifying some bug in C code.
83 In the future, OpenOCD would use the sparse attribute 'bitwise' to
84 detect incorrect endianness assignments.
88 mkdir build-sparse; cd build-sparse
89 ../configure CC=cgcc CFLAGS="-Wsparse-all -Wno-declaration-after-statement \
90 -Wno-unknown-attribute -Wno-transparent-union -Wno-tautological-compare \
91 -Wno-vla -Wno-flexible-array-array -D__FLT_EVAL_METHOD__=0"
95 - Code coverage analysis
97 By inspecting the code coverage, you can identify potential gaps in your testing
98 and use that information to improve your test scenarios.
102 mkdir build-gcov; cd build-gcov
103 ../configure --enable-gcov [...]
105 # ... Now execute your test scenarios to collect OpenOCD code coverage ...
106 lcov --capture --directory ./src --output-file openocd-coverage.info
107 genhtml openocd-coverage.info --output-directory coverage_report
108 # ... Open coverage_report/index.html in a web browser ...
111 Please consider performing these additional checks where appropriate
112 (especially Clang Static Analyzer for big portions of new code) and
113 mention the results (e.g. "Valgrind-clean, no new Clang analyzer
114 warnings") in the commit message.
116 Say in the commit message if it's a bugfix (describe the bug) or a new
117 feature. Don't expect patches to merge immediately
118 for the next release. Be ready to rework patches
119 in response to feedback.
121 Add yourself to the GPL copyright for non-trivial changes.
123 @section stepbystep Step by step procedure
125 -# Create a Gerrit account at: https://review.openocd.org
126 - On subsequent sign ins, use the full URL prefaced with 'http://'
127 For example: http://user_identifier.open_id_provider.com
128 -# Add a username to your profile.
129 After creating the Gerrit account and signing in, you will need to
130 add a username to your profile. To do this, go to 'Settings', and
131 add a username of your choice.
132 Your username will be required in step 3 and substituted wherever
133 the string 'USERNAME' is found.
134 -# Create an SSH public key following the directions on github:
135 https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys . You can skip step 3
136 (adding key to Github account) and 4 (testing) - these are useful only if
137 you actually use Github or want to test whether the new key works fine.
138 -# Add this new SSH key to your Gerrit account:
139 go to 'Settings' > 'SSH Public Keys', paste the contents of
140 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub into the text field (if it's not visible click on
141 'Add Key ...' button) and confirm by clicking 'Add' button.
142 -# Clone the git repository, rather than just download the source:
144 git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/openocd/code openocd
146 or if you have problems with the "git:" protocol, use
147 the slower http protocol:
149 git clone http://git.code.sf.net/p/openocd/code openocd
151 -# Set up Gerrit with your local repository. All this does it
152 to instruct git locally how to send off the changes.
153 -# Add a new remote to git using Gerrit username:
155 git remote add review ssh://USERNAME@review.openocd.org:29418/openocd.git
156 git config remote.review.push HEAD:refs/for/master
160 git remote add review https://USERNAME@review.openocd.org/p/openocd.git
161 git config remote.review.push HEAD:refs/for/master
163 The http password is configured from your gerrit settings - https://review.openocd.org/#/settings/http-password.
164 \note If you want to simplify http access you can also add your http password to the url as follows:
166 git remote add review https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@review.openocd.org/p/openocd.git
168 \note All contributions should be pushed to @c refs/for/master on the
169 Gerrit server, even if you plan to use several local branches for different
170 topics. It is possible because @c for/master is not a traditional Git
172 -# You will need to install this hook, we will look into a better solution:
174 wget https://review.openocd.org/tools/hooks/commit-msg
175 mv commit-msg .git/hooks
176 chmod +x .git/hooks/commit-msg
178 \note A script exists to simplify the two items above. Execute:
180 tools/initial.sh <username>
182 With @<username@> being your Gerrit username.
183 -# Set up git with your name and email:
185 git config --global user.name "John Smith"
186 git config --global user.email "john@smith.org"
188 -# Work on your patches. Split the work into
189 multiple small patches that can be reviewed and
190 applied separately and safely to the OpenOCD
194 work - edit files using your favorite editor.
195 run "git commit -s -a" to commit all changes.
196 run tools/checkpatch.sh to verify your patch style is ok.
199 \note use "git add ." before commit to add new files.
201 \note check @ref checkpatch for hint about checkpatch script
203 Commit message template, notice the short first line.
204 The field '<c>specify touched area</c>'
205 should identify the main part or subsystem the patch touches.
207 specify touched area: short comment
209 Longer comments over several lines, explaining (where applicable) the
210 reason for the patch and the general idea the solution is based on,
211 any major design decisions, etc. Limit each comment line's length to 75
212 characters; since 75 it's too short for a URL, you can put the URL in a
213 separate line preceded by 'Link: '.
219 flash/nor/atsame5: add SAME59 support
224 flash/nor: flash driver for XYZ123
226 Add new flash driver for internal flash of ...
229 target/cortex_m: fix segmentation fault in cmd 'soft_reset_halt'
231 soft_reset_halt command failed reproducibly under following conditions: ...
232 Test for NULL pointer and return error ...
234 Reported-by: John Reporter <rep9876@gmail.com>
235 Fixes: 123456789abc ("target: the commit where the problem started")
236 BugLink: https://sourceforge.net/p/openocd/tickets/999/
241 See "git log" for more examples.
243 -# Next you need to make sure that your patches
244 are on top of the latest stuff on the server and
245 that there are no conflicts:
247 git pull --rebase origin master
249 -# Send the patches to the Gerrit server for review:
253 -# Forgot something, want to add more? Just make the changes and do:
259 Further reading: http://www.coreboot.org/Git
261 @section checkpatch About checkpatch script
263 OpenOCD source code includes the script checkpatch to let developers to
264 verify their patches before submitting them for review (see @ref gerrit).
266 Every patch for OpenOCD project that is submitted for review on Gerrit
267 is tested by Jenkins. Jenkins will run the checkpatch script to analyze
269 If the script highlights either errors or warnings, Gerrit will add the
270 score "-1" to the patch and maintainers will probably ignore the patch,
271 waiting for the developer to send a fixed version.
273 The script checkpatch verifies the SPDX tag for new files against a very
274 short list of license tags.
275 If the license of your contribution is not listed there, but compatible
276 with OpenOCD license, please alert the maintainers or add the missing
277 license in the first patch of your patch series.
279 The script checkpatch has been originally developed for the Linux kernel
280 source code, thus includes specific tests and checks related to Linux
281 coding style and to Linux code structure. While the script has been
282 adapted for OpenOCD specificities, it still includes some Linux related
283 test. It is then possible that it triggers sometimes some <em>false
286 If you think that the error identified by checkpatch is a false
287 positive, please report it to the openocd-devel mailing list or prepare
288 a patch for fixing checkpatch and send it to Gerrit for review.
290 \attention The procedure below is allowed only for <em>exceptional
291 cases</em>. Do not use it to submit normal patches.
293 There are <em>exceptional cases</em> in which you need to skip some of
294 the tests from checkpatch in order to pass the approval from Gerrit.
296 For example, a patch that modify one line inside a big comment block
297 will not show the beginning or the end of the comment block. This can
298 prevent checkpatch to detect the comment block. Checkpatch can wrongly
299 consider the modified comment line as a code line, triggering a set of
302 Only for <em>exceptional cases</em>, it is allowed to submit patches
303 to Gerrit with the special field 'Checkpatch-ignore:' in the commit
304 message. This field will cause checkpatch to ignore the error types
305 listed in the field, only for the patch itself.
306 For errors in the commit message, the special field has to be put in
307 the commit message before the line that produces the error.
308 The special field must be added <em>before</em> the 'Signed-off-by:'
309 line, otherwise it is ignored.
310 To ignore multiple errors, either add multiple lines with the special
311 field or add multiple error types, separated by space or commas, in a
313 The error type is printed by checkpatch on failure.
314 For example the names of Windows APIs mix lower and upper case chars,
315 in violation of OpenOCD coding style, triggering a 'CAMELCASE' error:
317 CHECK:CAMELCASE: Avoid CamelCase: <WSAGetLastError>
318 #96105: FILE: src/helper/log.c:505:
319 + error_code = WSAGetLastError();
321 Adding in the commit message of the patch the line:
323 Checkpatch-ignore: CAMELCASE
325 will force checkpatch to ignore the CAMELCASE error.
327 @section timeline When can I expect my contribution to be committed?
329 The code review is intended to take as long as a week or two to allow
330 maintainers and contributors who work on OpenOCD only in their spare
331 time opportunity to perform a review and raise objections.
333 With Gerrit much of the urgency of getting things committed has been
334 removed as the work in progress is safely stored in Gerrit and
335 available if someone needs to build on your work before it is
336 submitted to the official repository.
338 Another factor that contributes to the desire for longer cool-off
339 times (the time a patch lies around without any further changes or
340 comments), it means that the chances of quality regression on the
341 master branch will be much reduced.
343 If a contributor pushes a patch, it is considered good form if another
344 contributor actually approves and submits that patch.
346 It should be noted that a negative review in Gerrit ("-1" or "-2") may (but does
347 not have to) be disregarded if all conditions listed below are met:
349 - the concerns raised in the review have been addressed (or explained),
350 - reviewer does not re-examine the change in a month,
351 - reviewer does not answer e-mails for another month.
353 @section browsing Browsing Patches
354 All OpenOCD patches can be reviewed <a href="https://review.openocd.org/">here</a>.
356 @section reviewing Reviewing Patches
357 From the main <a href="https://review.openocd.org/#/q/status:open,n,z">Review
358 page</a> select the patch you want to review and click on that patch. On the
359 appearing page select the download method (top right). Apply the
360 patch. After building and testing you can leave a note with the "Reply"
361 button and mark the patch with -1, 0 and +1.
364 This file contains the @ref patchguide page.