[rust.git] / CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contributing to Rust

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Rust! There are many ways to
contribute, and we appreciate all of them. This document is a bit long, so here's
links to the major sections:

* [Feature Requests](#feature-requests)
* [Bug Reports](#bug-reports)
* [The Build System](#the-build-system)
* [Pull Requests](#pull-requests)
* [Writing Documentation](#writing-documentation)
* [Issue Triage](#issue-triage)
* [Out-of-tree Contributions](#out-of-tree-contributions)
* [Helpful Links and Information](#helpful-links-and-information)

If you have questions, please make a post on [internals.rust-lang.org][internals] or
hop on [#rust-internals][pound-rust-internals].

As a reminder, all contributors are expected to follow our [Code of Conduct][coc].

[pound-rust-internals]: http://chat.mibbit.com/?server=irc.mozilla.org&channel=%23rust-internals
[internals]: https://internals.rust-lang.org
[coc]: https://www.rust-lang.org/conduct.html

## Feature Requests

To request a change to the way that the Rust language works, please open an
issue in the [RFCs repository](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/issues/new)
rather than this one. New features and other significant language changes
must go through the RFC process.

## Bug Reports

While bugs are unfortunate, they're a reality in software. We can't fix what we
don't know about, so please report liberally. If you're not sure if something
is a bug or not, feel free to file a bug anyway.

**If you believe reporting your bug publicly represents a security risk to Rust users,
please follow our [instructions for reporting security vulnerabilities](https://www.rust-lang.org/security.html)**.

If you have the chance, before reporting a bug, please [search existing
issues](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/search?q=&type=Issues&utf8=%E2%9C%93),
as it's possible that someone else has already reported your error. This doesn't
always work, and sometimes it's hard to know what to search for, so consider this
extra credit. We won't mind if you accidentally file a duplicate report.

Opening an issue is as easy as following [this
link](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/new) and filling out the fields.
Here's a template that you can use to file a bug, though it's not necessary to
use it exactly:

    <short summary of the bug>

    I tried this code:

    <code sample that causes the bug>

    I expected to see this happen: <explanation>

    Instead, this happened: <explanation>

    ## Meta

    `rustc --version --verbose`:

    Backtrace:

All three components are important: what you did, what you expected, what
happened instead. Please include the output of `rustc --version --verbose`,
which includes important information about what platform you're on, what
version of Rust you're using, etc.

Sometimes, a backtrace is helpful, and so including that is nice. To get
a backtrace, set the `RUST_BACKTRACE` environment variable. The easiest way
to do this is to invoke `rustc` like this:

```bash
$ RUST_BACKTRACE=1 rustc ...
```

## The Build System

The build system for Rust is complex. It covers bootstrapping the compiler,
running tests, building documentation and more. Unless you are familiar with
Makefiles, I wouldn't suggest trying to understand everything going on in
Rust's setup - there's a lot there, and you can get lost trying to understand
it all.

If Makefiles are your thing, though, all the configuration lives in
[the `mk` directory][mkdir] in the project root.

[mkdir]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/tree/master/mk/

### Configuration

Before you can start building the compiler you need to configure the build for
your system. In most cases, that will just mean using the defaults provided
for Rust. Configuring involves invoking the `configure` script in the project
root.

```
./configure
```

There are large number of options accepted by this script to alter the
configuration used later in the build process. Some options to note:

- `--enable-debug` - Build a debug version of the compiler (disables optimizations)
- `--disable-valgrind-rpass` - Don't run tests with valgrind
- `--enable-clang` - Prefer clang to gcc for building dependencies (ie LLVM)
- `--enable-ccache` - Invoke clang/gcc with ccache to re-use object files between builds

To see a full list of options, run `./configure --help`.

### Useful Targets

Some common make targets are:

- `make rustc-stage1` - build up to (and including) the first stage. For most
  cases we don't need to build the stage2 compiler, so we can save time by not
  building it. The stage1 compiler is a fully functioning compiler and
  (probably) will be enough to determine if your change works as expected.
- `make check` - build the full compiler & run all tests (takes a while). This
  is what gets run by the continuous integration system against your pull
  request. You should run this before submitting to make sure your tests pass
  & everything builds in the correct manner.
- `make check-stage1-std NO_REBUILD=1` - test the standard library without
  rebuilding the entire compiler
- `make check TESTNAME=<path-to-test-file>.rs` - Run a single test file
- `make check-stage1-rpass TESTNAME=<path-to-test-file>.rs` - Run a single
  rpass test with the stage1 compiler (this will be quicker than running the
  command above as we only build the stage1 compiler, not the entire thing).
  You can also leave off the `-rpass` to run all stage1 test types.

## Pull Requests

Pull requests are the primary mechanism we use to change Rust. GitHub itself
has some [great documentation][pull-requests] on using the Pull Request
feature. We use the 'fork and pull' model described there.

[pull-requests]: https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests/

Please make pull requests against the `master` branch.

Compiling all of `make check` can take a while. When testing your pull request,
consider using one of the more specialized `make` targets to cut down on the
amount of time you have to wait. You need to have built the compiler at least
once before running these will work, but that’s only one full build rather than
one each time.

    $ make -j8 rustc-stage1 && make check-stage1

is one such example, which builds just `rustc`, and then runs the tests. If
you’re adding something to the standard library, try

    $ make -j8 check-stage1-std NO_REBUILD=1

This will not rebuild the compiler, but will run the tests.

All pull requests are reviewed by another person. We have a bot,
@rust-highfive, that will automatically assign a random person to review your
request.

If you want to request that a specific person reviews your pull request,
you can add an `r?` to the message. For example, Steve usually reviews
documentation changes. So if you were to make a documentation change, add

    r? @steveklabnik

to the end of the message, and @rust-highfive will assign @steveklabnik instead
of a random person. This is entirely optional.

After someone has reviewed your pull request, they will leave an annotation
on the pull request with an `r+`. It will look something like this:

    @bors: r+ 38fe8d2

This tells @bors, our lovable integration bot, that your pull request has
been approved. The PR then enters the [merge queue][merge-queue], where @bors
will run all the tests on every platform we support. If it all works out,
@bors will merge your code into `master` and close the pull request.

[merge-queue]: http://buildbot.rust-lang.org/homu/queue/rust

Speaking of tests, Rust has a comprehensive test suite. More information about
it can be found
[here](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Note-testsuite.md).

## Writing Documentation

Documentation improvements are very welcome. The source of `doc.rust-lang.org`
is located in `src/doc` in the tree, and standard API documentation is generated
from the source code itself.

Documentation pull requests function in the same way as other pull requests,
though you may see a slightly different form of `r+`:

    @bors: r+ 38fe8d2 rollup

That additional `rollup` tells @bors that this change is eligible for a 'rollup'.
To save @bors some work, and to get small changes through more quickly, when
@bors attempts to merge a commit that's rollup-eligible, it will also merge
the other rollup-eligible patches too, and they'll get tested and merged at
the same time.

To find documentation-related issues, sort by the [A-docs label][adocs].

[adocs]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3AA-docs

In many cases, you don't need a full `make doc`. You can use `rustdoc` directly
to check small fixes. For example, `rustdoc src/doc/reference.md` will render
reference to `doc/reference.html`. The CSS might be messed up, but you can
verify that HTML is right.

## Issue Triage

Sometimes, an issue will stay open, even though the bug has been fixed. And
sometimes, the original bug may go stale because something has changed in the
meantime.

It can be helpful to go through older bug reports and make sure that they are
still valid. Load up an older issue, double check that it's still true, and
leave a comment letting us know if it is or is not. The [least recently
updated sort][lru] is good for finding issues like this.

Contributors with sufficient permissions on the Rust repo can help by adding
labels to triage issues:

* Yellow, **A**-prefixed labels state which **area** of the project an issue
  relates to.

* Magenta, **B**-prefixed labels identify bugs which are **blockers**.

* Green, **E**-prefixed labels explain the level of **experience** necessary
  to fix the issue.

* Red, **I**-prefixed labels indicate the **importance** of the issue. The
  [I-nominated][inom] label indicates that an issue has been nominated for
  prioritizing at the next triage meeting.

* Orange, **P**-prefixed labels indicate a bug's **priority**. These labels
  are only assigned during triage meetings, and replace the [I-nominated][inom]
  label.

* Blue, **T**-prefixed bugs denote which **team** the issue belongs to.

* Dark blue, **beta-** labels track changes which need to be backported into
  the beta branches.

* The purple **metabug** label marks lists of bugs collected by other
  categories.

If you're looking for somewhere to start, check out the [E-easy][eeasy] tag.

[inom]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3AI-nominated
[eeasy]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3AE-easy
[lru]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-asc

## Out-of-tree Contributions

There are a number of other ways to contribute to Rust that don't deal with
this repository.

Answer questions in [#rust][pound-rust], or on [users.rust-lang.org][users],
or on [StackOverflow][so].

Participate in the [RFC process](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs).

Find a [requested community library][community-library], build it, and publish
it to [Crates.io](http://crates.io). Easier said than done, but very, very
valuable!

[pound-rust]: http://chat.mibbit.com/?server=irc.mozilla.org&channel=%23rust
[users]: https://users.rust-lang.org/
[so]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/rust
[community-library]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/labels/A-community-library

## Helpful Links and Information

For people new to Rust, and just starting to contribute, or even for
more seasoned developers, some useful places to look for information
are:

* The [Rust Internals forum][rif], a place to ask questions and
  discuss Rust's internals
* The [generated documentation for rust's compiler][gdfrustc]
* The [rust reference][rr], even though it doesn't specifically talk about Rust's internals, it's a great resource nonetheless
* Although out of date, [Tom Lee's great blog article][tlgba] is very helpful
* [rustaceans.org][ro] is helpful, but mostly dedicated to IRC
* The [Rust Compiler Testing Docs][rctd]
* For @bors, [this cheat sheet][cheatsheet] is helpful (Remember to replace `@homu` with `@bors` in the commands that you use.)
* **Google!** ([search only in Rust Documentation][gsearchdocs] to find types, traits, etc. quickly)
* Don't be afraid to ask! The Rust community is friendly and helpful.

[gdfrustc]: http://manishearth.github.io/rust-internals-docs/rustc/
[gsearchdocs]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:doc.rust-lang.org+your+query+here
[rif]: http://internals.rust-lang.org
[rr]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/README.html
[tlgba]: http://tomlee.co/2014/04/03/a-more-detailed-tour-of-the-rust-compiler/
[ro]: http://www.rustaceans.org/
[rctd]: ./COMPILER_TESTS.md
[cheatsheet]: http://buildbot.rust-lang.org/homu/