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authorIndrajith K L2022-12-03 17:00:20 +0530
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+## Code Structure
+
+I tried to make the code of the compiler and vlib as simple and readable as
+possible. One of V's goals is to be open to developers with different levels
+of experience in compiler development. Compilers don't need to be black boxes
+full of magic that only few people understand.
+
+The V compiler is modular, and can be used by other applications. It is located
+in `cmd/v/` and `vlib/v/`.
+
+The most important and useful command to remember when working on the V compiler
+is `v self`.
+It rebuilds the V compiler.
+
+Be careful, if you introduce a breaking change and rebuild V, you will no longer
+be able to use V to build itself. So it's a good idea to make a backup copy of a
+working compiler executable.
+
+But don't worry, you can always simply run `make` (or `make.bat`), it will
+download the C version of the compiler and rebuild it from scratch.
+
+The architecture of the compiler is very simple and has three distinct steps:
+
+Parse/generate AST (`v.parser`) => Check types (`v.checker`)
+=> Generate C/JavaScript/machine code (`v.gen`)
+
+
+The main files are:
+
+1. `cmd/v/v.v` The entry point.
+
+- V figures out the build mode.
+- Constructs the compiler object (`struct V`).
+- Creates a list of .v files that need to be parsed.
+- Creates a parser object for each file and runs `parse()` on them.
+- The correct backend is called (C, JS, native), and a binary is compiled.
+
+2. `v/scanner` The scanner's job is to parse a list of characters and convert
+them to tokens.
+
+3. `v/token` This is simply a list of all tokens, their string values, and a
+couple of helper functions.
+
+4. `v/parser` The parser. It converts a list of tokens into an AST.
+In V, objects can be used before declaration, so unknown types are marked as
+unresolved. They are resolved later in the type checker.
+
+5. `v/table` V creates one table object that is shared by all parsers. It
+contains all types, consts, and functions, as well as several helpers to search
+for objects by name, register new objects, modify types' fields, etc.
+
+6. `v/checker` Type checker and resolver. It processes the AST and makes sure
+the types are correct. Unresolved types are resolved, type information is added
+to the AST.
+
+7. `v/gen/c` C backend. It simply walks the AST and generates C code that can be
+compiled with Clang, GCC, Visual Studio, and TCC.
+
+8. `json.v` defines the json code generation. This file will be removed once V
+supports comptime code generation, and it will be possible to do this using the
+language's tools.
+
+9. `v/gen/native` is the directory with all the machine code generation logic. It
+defines a set of functions that translate assembly instructions to machine code
+and build the binary from scratch byte by byte. It manually builds all headers,
+segments, sections, symtable, relocations, etc. Right now it only has basic
+support of the native platform (ELF, MACHO format).
+
+The rest of the directories are vlib modules: `builtin/` (strings, arrays,
+maps), `time/`, `os/`, etc. Their documentation is pretty clear.
+
+## Example Workflow for Contributing
+(provided by [@spytheman](https://github.com/spytheman))
+
+(If you don't already have a GitHub account, please create one. Your GitHub
+username will be referred to later as 'YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME'. Change it
+accordingly in the steps below.)
+
+1. Fork https://github.com/vlang/v using GitHub's interface to your own account.
+Let's say that the forked repository is at
+`https://github.com/YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/v` .
+2. Clone the main v repository https://github.com/vlang/v to a local folder on
+your computer, say named nv/ (`git clone https://github.com/vlang/v nv`)
+3. `cd nv`
+4. `git remote add pullrequest https://github.com/YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/v`
+NB: the remote named `pullrequest` should point to YOUR own forked repo, not the
+main v repository! After this, your local cloned repository is prepared for
+making pullrequests, and you can just do normal git operations such as:
+`git pull` `git status` and so on.
+
+5. When finished with a feature/bugfix/change, you can:
+`git checkout -b fix_alabala`
+6. `git push pullrequest` # (NOTE: the `pullrequest` remote was setup on step 4)
+7. On GitHub's web interface, go to: https://github.com/vlang/v/pulls
+
+ Here the UI shows a dialog with a button to make a new pull request based on
+ the new pushed branch.
+ (Example dialog: https://url4e.com/gyazo/images/364edc04.png)
+
+8. After making your pullrequest (aka, PR), you can continue to work on the
+branch `fix_alabala` ... just do again `git push pullrequest` when you have more
+commits.
+
+9. If there are merge conflicts, or a branch lags too much behind V's master,
+you can do the following:
+
+ 1. `git pull --rebase origin master` # solve conflicts and do
+ `git rebase --continue`
+ 2. `git push pullrequest -f` # this will overwrite your current remote branch
+ with the updated version of your changes.
+
+The point of doing the above steps, is to never directly push to the main V
+repository, *only to your own fork*. Since your local `master` branch tracks the
+main V repository's master, then `git checkout master`, as well as
+`git pull --rebase origin master` will continue to work as expected
+(these are actually used by `v up`) and git can always do it cleanly.
+
+Git is very flexible, so there are other ways to accomplish the same thing.
+See the [GitHub flow](https://guides.github.com/introduction/git-handbook/#github), for more information.
+
+## Using Github's hub CLI tool
+
+You can download the `hub` tool from https://hub.github.com/ . Using
+`hub`, you will not need to go through the (sometimes) slow website
+to make PRs. Most remote operations can be done through the `hub` CLI
+command.
+
+NB: You still need to have a GitHub account.
+
+### Preparation:
+(steps 1..3 need to be done just *once*):
+
+1. `hub clone vlang/v my_v`
+2. `cd my_v`
+3. `hub fork --remote-name pullrequest`
+
+4. `git checkout -b my_cool_feature` # Step 4 is better done *once per each new
+feature/bugfix* that you make.
+
+### Improve V by making commits:
+
+5. `git commit -am "math: add a new function copysign"`
+
+### Testing your commits locally:
+You can test locally whether your changes have not broken something by
+running: `v test-all`. See `TESTS.md` for more details.
+
+### Publishing your commits to GitHub:
+
+6. `git push pullrequest`
+
+### Making a PR with `hub`:
+(so that your changes can be merged to the main V repository)
+
+7. `hub pull-request`
+
+Optionally, you can track the status of your PR CI tests with:
+
+8. `hub ci-status --verbose`
+
+### Fixing failing tests:
+If everything is OK, after 5-10 minutes, the CI tests should pass for
+all platforms. If not, visit the URLs for the failing CI jobs, see
+which tests have failed and then fix them by making more changes. Just use
+`git push pullrequest` to publish your changes. The CI tests will
+run with your updated code. Use `hub ci-status --verbose` to monitor
+their status.
+
+## Flags
+
+V allows you to pass custom flags using `-d my_flag` that can then be checked
+at compile time (see the documentation about
+[compile-time if](https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/doc/docs.md#compile-time-if)).
+There are numerous flags that can be passed when building the compiler
+with `v self` or when creating a copy of the compiler, that will help
+you when debugging.
+
+Beware that the flags must be passed when building the compiler,
+not the program, so do for example: `v -d time_parsing cmd/v` or
+`v -d trace_checker self`.
+Some flags can make the compiler very verbose, so it is recommended
+to create a copy of the compiler rather than replacing it with `v self`.
+
+| Flag | Usage |
+|------|-------|
+| `debugautostr` | Prints informations about `.str()` method auto-generated by the compiler during C generation |
+| `debugscanner` | Prints debug information during the scanning phase |
+| `debug_codegen` | Prints automatically generated V code during the scanning phase |
+| `debug_interface_table` | Prints generated interfaces during C generation |
+| `debug_interface_type_implements` | Prints debug information when checking that a type implements in interface |
+| `print_vweb_template_expansions` | Prints vweb compiled HTML files |
+| `time_checking` | Prints the time spent checking files and other related informations |
+| `time_parsing` | Prints the time spent parsing files and other related informations |
+| `trace_ccoptions` | Prints options passed down to the C compiler |
+| `trace_checker` | Prints informations about the statements being checked |
+| `trace_gen` | Prints strings written to the generated C file. Beware, this flag is very verbose |
+| `trace_parser` | Prints informations about parsed statements and expressions |
+| `trace_thirdparty_obj_files` | Prints informations about built thirdparty obj files |
+| `trace_use_cache` | Prints informations about cache use |