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Development Guide

Git management

We use the Git Flow approach to maintain a hierarchy and a clean repository. It means that we have the following branches: - master is the default working branch - develop is the development branch, the source branch for every new development - dev-* are the ongoing development branch - fix-* fix a bug or solve an issue

To create a new development branch, simply do 

# go on the develop branch
git checkout develop
# update your version
git pull
# create a new branch
git checkout -b dev-mynewfeature develop
To incorporate your development into the develop branch, use pull requests. The automatic testing must be included and succeed in the code.

Additionally, for the commit we use the gitmoji guide to describe your commit purpose. It helps to automatically identify the reason of the commit. Here is a small non-exhaustive list

Action Corresponding emoji
Solve a regular bug 🐛 :bug:
Sovle a critical bug 🚑 :ambulance:
Add documentation / comments / doxygen 📝 :memo:
Compilation / makefile 🔧 :wrench:
Docker 🐳 :whale:
Refactor ♻ :recycle:
Work in Progress 🚧 :construction:
Cleanup the code 🗑 :wastebasket:
Refactor the code 🏗 :::building_construction:::

Create issues to keep track of the development and also to discuss any question you might have. You can use the keywords clos(e/es/ed), resolv(e/es/ed) and fix(/es/ed) followed by the issue number to close an issue once merged in the default branch 

git commit -m ":sparkles: closes #9"

Style Guide

To ensure a consistent style across murphy, we rely on the Google C++ Style Guide. Additionally, we use two tools to help the formatting:

  • cpplint tool to detect style errors, 
    cpplint --filter=-whitespace/line_length,-runtime/printf myfile
  • clang-format to help the formatting in VSCode. The file .clang-format should be automatically detected and loaded in VSCode, giving you access Immediately to the formatting behavior. You regenerate that file using 
    # brew install clang-format if needed
clang-format -style='{BasedOnStyle: Google, ColumnLimit: 0, IndentWidth: 4, AlignConsecutiveAssignments: true, AlignConsecutiveDeclarations: true, AlignEscapedNewlines: true, AlignOperands: true }' -dump-config > .clang-format

There are some exceptions to the style guide as listed below:

  • typedef defined types have a postfix: *_t (e.g. real_t for the real datatype, iface_t when lopping on the faces, ...)
  • the macro definitions acting as functions have a prefix m_, which stands for MURPHY (e.g. m_verb)
  • the files are names in lowercase with a .cpp and .hpp extension, with filenames copying the class it contains (e.g. class Grid in grid.cpp)
  • callback functions used to interface with p4est start with cback_