About CVS write access: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Before everything else, you should know how to use CVS properly. CVS comes with some documentation, as usual cvs --help man cvs are a good start. The most comprehensive manual is the book "Version Management with CVS" by Per Cederqvist. It may be available on your system via info cvs or online at http://www.cvshome.org/docs/manual/ Another very good resource is "The CVS Book - Open Source Development with CVS" by Karl Fogel and Moshe Bar. It is also available online: http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/ Consult these resources whenever you have problems, they are quite exhaustive. What follows now are MPlayer specific guidelines. I. TECH SIDE: ============= 1. Changing password: As you probably got a restricted CVS-only shell, it's not trivial: ssh LOGIN@mplayerhq.hu passwd Replace LOGIN with your login name. Leave 'passwd' unchanged, it's a command. Note: If you need a real shell for something, tell A'rpi. 2. Checking out development source tree: export CVS_RSH=ssh cvs -z3 -d:ext:LOGIN@mplayerhq.hu:/cvsroot/mplayer co -P main Replace LOGIN with your login name. NOTE: cvs -d:pserver: mode doesn't allow writing, even with password! 3. Committing changes: cvs -z3 update -dPA cvs -z3 commit filename(s) Do not use comments such as: "bug fix." or "files changed" or "dunno". You don't have to include the filename in the comment, as comments are linked to files. If you have made several independent changes, commit them separately, not at the same time. You will be prompted for a comment in an editor (see 'cvs -e', usually vi). 4. Adding new files/dirs: cvs add filename/dirname cvs commit filename Directories are added immediately, no commit necessary. 5. Removing files: rm filename cvs remove filename cvs commit filename 6. Checking changes: cvs -z3 diff -u filename(s) Doublecheck your changes before committing to avoid trouble later on. This way you will see if your patch has debug stuff or indentation changes and you can fix it before committing and triggering flames. 7. Checking changelog: cvs -z3 log filename(s) cvs -z3 annotate filename(s) You may also find viewcvs, a web frontend for CVS helpful. It's often more comfortable than using cvs log, cvs annotate and cvs diff. Find it here: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/main 8. Renaming/moving files or content of files, removing empty directories: You CANNOT do that. Ask the CVS server admin (A'rpi) to do it! Do NOT remove & readd a file - it will kill the changelog!!!! Don't do a lot of cut'n'paste from one file to another without a very good reason and discuss it on the mplayer-dev-eng mailing list first. It will make those changes untraceable! Such actions are useless and treated as cosmetics in 99% of cases, so try to avoid them. 9. Reverting broken commits In case you committed something really broken and wish to undo it completely, you can use the 'cvs admin -o' command, which removes entries from the revision history of a file. It does not undo the changes related to that revision, but for the corner case that you remove the last revision (and only then!) this amounts to reverting a commit. Assuming that 1.123 is the last revision cvs -z3 admin -o1.123 filename will remove revision 1.123, thus reverting the file back to revision 1.122. ONLY use this command to delete the LAST revision of a file. Removing other revisions will NOT undo the changes connected to that revision, so the last revision will remain unmodified, only revision history will be lost and holes left in the revision numbering. Contact A'rpi if you have technical problems with the CVS server. II. POLICY / RULES: =================== 1. You must not commit code which breaks MPlayer! (Meaning unfinished but enabled code which breaks compilation or compiles but does not work.) You can commit unfinished stuff (for testing etc), but it must be disabled (#ifdef etc) by default so it does not interfere with other developers' work. 2. You don't have to over-test things. If it works for you, and you think it should work for others, too, then commit. If your code has problems (portability, exploits compiler bugs, unusual environment etc) they will be reported and eventually fixed. 3. Do not commit unrelated changes together, split them into self-contained pieces. 4. Do not change behavior of the program (renaming options etc) without first discussing it on the mplayer-dev-eng mailing list. Do not remove functionality from the code. Just improve! 5. Do not commit changes to the build system (Makefiles, configure script) which change behaviour, defaults etc, without asking first. The same applies to compiler warning fixes, trivial looking fixes and to code maintained by other developers. We usually have a reason for doing things the way we do. Send your changes as patches to the mplayer-dev-eng mailing list, and if the code maintainers say OK, you may commit. This does not apply to files you wrote and/or maintain. 6. We refuse source indentation and other cosmetic changes if they are mixed with functional changes, such commits will be rejected and removed. Every developer has his own indentation style, you should not change it. Of course if you (re)write something, you can use your own style... (Many projects force a given indentation style - we don't.) If you really need to make indentation changes (try to avoid this), separate them strictly from real changes. NOTE: If you had to put if(){ .. } over a large (> 5 lines) chunk of code, do NOT change the indentation of the inner part (don't move it to the right)! 7. Always fill out the commit log message. Describe in a few lines what you changed and why. You can refer to mailing list postings if you fix a particular bug. Comments such as "fixed!" or "Changed it." are unacceptable. 8. If you apply a patch by someone else, include the name and email address in the CVS log message. Since the mplayer-cvslog mailing list is publicly archived you should add some spam protection to the email address. Send an answer to mplayer-dev-eng (or wherever you got the patch from) saying that you applied the patch. 9. Do NOT commit to code actively maintained by others without permission. Send a patch to mplayer-dev-eng instead. 10. Subscribe to the mplayer-cvslog mailing list. The diffs of all CVS commits are sent there and reviewed by all the other developers. Bugs and possible improvements or general questions regarding commits are discussed there. We expect you to react if problems with your code are uncovered. 11. Update the documentation if you change behavior or add features. If you are unsure how best to do this, send a patch to mplayer-docs, the documentation maintainers will review and commit your stuff. 12. Revert a commit ONLY in case of a big blunder like committing something not intended to be committed or committing a wrong file, the wrong version of a patch, cosmetics or broken code and you are going to recommit the right thing immediately. Never revert changes made a long time ago or buggy code. Fix it in the normal way instead. Also read DOCS/tech/patches.txt !!!! We think our rules are not too hard. If you have comments, contact us. III. Beginners Guide by David Holm ==================== When I first got CVS write access I got banned after only a few hours because I didn't fully understand this documentation. This part is for those of you who have just got CVS write access and want to avoid the most common pitfalls leading to CVS ban. I will introduce a step-by-step guide explaining how I'm making sure that my CVS commits are proper and won't get me banned. 1. You should set up two directoress for MPlayer, one which contains the stable version and has the :ext: option instead of :pserver: in CVS/Root. The other should be your development directory and have the CVS/Root set to :pserver: instead of :ext:, that way you can't commit development code by accident (since only :ext: allows writes). This is my setup: ~/mplayer /main /main.dev NOTE: I'll use these directory names from here on in the guide, what you call your directories is entirely up to you. This is _only_ an example. 2. When you are satisfied with the changes in "main.dev" and think you are ready to commit the changes to CVS start by doing the following in the "~/mplayer" dir": diff -Nur -x "CVS" -x ".*" main main.dev > dev2stable dev2stable is the filename for the patchfile, it doesn't matter what you call it. 3. Now comes one of the tricky parts, editing the patch. I prefer using mcedit (comes with Midnight Commander) since it does syntax highlighting in patches (= it uses colors to identify lines =), But most ASCII editors should do (meaning don't use Star Office and save it as a Star Office document for instance ;) I will try to explain this as good as I can. Read through the patch and remove all occurrences of: * diff -Nur.... that are affecting files YOU have NOT modified. These occur when either main or main.dev are a different version (not checked out at the same time) EVERYTHING from the diff -Nur... line until the next diff -Nur... line are changes to the file specified after the diff options, and ONLY that file. * Lines containing "Binary files..." if you add the 'a' switch to -N(a)ur binary files will be added to the patch as well, making it huge and putting a lot of unnecessary data in it (since you seldom commit any binaries). * If you find changes within a diff block that you don't want to commit you can delete them if they are the only changes ranging from the @@ -x,y +x,y @@ until the line before the next @@ -x,y +x,y @@. You _cannot_ remove single lines after a @@ -x,y +x,y @@ because that will break the patch!. Example: ... @@ -15,34 +15,6 @@ - old_option; + new_option; @@ -65,13 +65,3 @@ ... OK: ... @@ -65,13 +65,3 @@ ... Will break patch: ... @@ -15,34 +15,6 @@ old_option; @@ -65,13 +65,3 @@ ... When I end up in a situation where I have to remove just some lines from a block, I leave it alone, remember (write down) which file it is in and then edit the file in "main" after I've applied the patch. * Now it's time for applying the patch to the "main" (stable) directory. This should be done in two steps: 1. enter "main" and run patch -p1 --dry-run < ../dev2stable -p1 means that you are one level deep (that you have entered the "main" directory and that should be stripped when patching, if you run it from "~/mplayer" you would use -p0). --dry-run means that patch does everything it normally does but without modifying ANY files. This is a great way of testing whether your patch works or not. "../dev2stable" is your patchfile. (don't forget the '<') If the dry run fails, check the line it failed on and figure out why it failed, make a new patch and try again. 2. OK, you finally have a working patch, remove --dry-run, patch "main" and you are done with the patching part =). 4. It's almost time for the final step, committing the changes. But first you MUST make sure your changes compile without breaking anything and that it follows the Policy mentioned in section 2. (Read it until your eyes are bleeding if you want to keep CVS access!) Don't worry about object files etc that will be created in your "main" dir, they won't be sent to CVS on a commit, you must use the add command to add new files (discuss it on dev-eng before adding new files!). Now to make sure your additions follow policy do the following on every file you will commit: cvs -z3 diff -u > Of course the output file () can have any name you want. This will create a file showing the differences between the file on CVS and your updated local file. I will explain some of the policy rules I had a hard time understanding: II.5: This means that if for instance you have lines in that look something like this: - + That means you have added or removed tabs or spaces on that line. That qualifies as a cosmetic change and is disallowed. Edit the file and put back/remove the added/removed tabs/spaces. Rediff the file and make sure the cosmetic changes are fixed. II.6: Make sure you read and understand this properly before committing anything. Commit one file at a time! 5. OK, you have a working patch following the CVS policy, excellent work. Now for the final step, committing. This is really simple. Just run the following command in "main" for each file you want to commit: cvs -z3 commit -m "" cvs -z3 commit The latter will bring up your default text editor for writing comments (I prefer this method). You are done, congratulations. If you are certain you have followed all of the policy you shouldn't have any trouble with the CVS maintainers at all. At first I thought the policy was too strict, but I discussed it with A'rpi and he made some very good points, so don't complain.