Contributing

If you are keen to contribute to this project, please follow these guidelines:

• Before making any change, please first discuss via issue or email with the owners of this repository.

• Development is based on Python 3.7.

• Git branches follow the GitFlow principle.

• Release versioning follows the Semantic Versioning principle.

Git branches

Based on the GitFlow principle there are the following branches:

1. master - Contains stable release versions of the repository. Only admins should send pull requests / commits to master when 1) fixing a critical bug or 2) publishing a new release.

2. develop - This branch is intended as the main branch for development or improvement of features. Anyone can send pull requests to develop.

3. feature/xxx - This branch is dedicated to developing feature xxx. The idea is to keep development or improvement works separate from the main develop branch. Once the work is finished, a pull request is created for feature xxx to be merged back into the develop branch.

Release versioning

Every time the master branch changes, a new version number is defined according to the Semantic Versioning principle:

1. New releases cause a changing version number in the first digit for major changes and in the second digit for minor changes (e.g. from 0.1.13 -> 0.2.0).

2. Bugfixes cause a changing version number in the third digit (eg. from 0.1.12 -> 0.1.13)

Style guide

• Follow the PEP 8 Style Guide and check this PEP8 Explainer.

• Variable / function / object / class / module names:

  • Names are verbose and avoid abbreviations.

  • Variable / function / object names are in lowercase and underscore_case (all letters are lowercase and all words are separated by underscores).

  • Variable / object names start with a lowercase letter.

  • Class / module names start with an uppercase letter and are in CamelCase (all letters are lowercase except for the first letter of new words).

• Paths:

  • Use relative paths.

  • Use os.join.path("x", "y") instead of "x/y".

• Docstrings / comments:

  • Docstrings should at minimum contain a short description of the function / class / module.

  • Docstrings and comments should only contain full sentences which conclude with a full stop (dot).

  • Docstrings follow Google style.

• Exceptions / errors / warnings / debug info:

  • Use proper logging tools instead of print("Error: ...").

  • Use logging like logger.error("...") or logger.warning("...") or logger.debug("...").

• Line length:

  • Line lengths should not exceed 120 characters.

• Line breaks:

  • Use brackets to contain content spanning multiple lines.

  • Do not use the \ symbol for line breaks.

• Quotes / strings:

  • Use single quotes '...' for parameters, indexes, pathes and use double quotes "..." for content, messages and docstrings.

• Results / output files:

  • Store results / output files only in the results directory.

  • The results path should be obtained with fledge.utils.get_results_path()

  • The content of the results directory should remain local, i.e., it should be ignored by Git and should not appear in any commits to the repository.

Updating environment.yml

The environment.yml file in the repository base directory provides a snapshot of an Anaconda environment with specific package versions which has been tested and is confirmed to work. The environment.yml file should be updated before releases, i.e. commits to the master branch. To update environment.yml, follow these steps:

1. Uninstall FLEDGE / delete the existing fledge Anaconda environment: conda env remove -n fledge

2. Reinstall FLEDGE / recreate the fledge Anaconda environment based on the recommended installation steps in Getting started.

3. Run all test and all examples scripts and fix any incompatibilities / bugs.

4. Update environment.yml: conda env export -n fledge > path_to_repository/environment.yml

5. Remove prefix: ... line from environment.yml.