Contributing

Bug reports, feature suggestions and other contributions are greatly appreciated! While I can’t promise to implement everything, I will always try to respond in a timely manner.

Short version

  • Submit bug reports and feature requests at GitHub

  • Make pull requests to the develop branch

Bug reports

When reporting a bug please include:

  • Your operating system name and version

  • Any details about your local setup that might be helpful in troubleshooting

  • Detailed steps to reproduce the bug

Feature requests and feedback

The best way to send feedback is to file an issue at GitHub.

If you are proposing a feature:

  • Explain in detail how it would work.

  • Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.

  • Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that code contributions are welcome :)

Development

To set up apexpy for local development:

  1. Fork apexpy on GitHub.

  2. Clone your fork locally:

    git clone git@github.com:your_name_here/apexpy.git

  3. Create a branch for local development based off of the develop branch:

    git checkout -b name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature origin/develop

    Now you can make your changes locally. Add tests for bugs and new features in the relevant test file in the tests directory. The tests are run with pytest and can be written as normal functions (starting with test_) containing a standard assert statement for testing output.

  4. When you’re done making changes, run pytest locally if you can:

    python -m pytest

  5. Commit your changes and push your branch to GitHub:

    git add .
git commit -m "ACRONYM: Brief description of your changes"
git push origin name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature

    The project now uses the NumPy acronyms for development workflow in the commit messages.

  6. Submit a pull request through the GitHub website. Pull requests should be made to the develop branch. The continuous integration (CI) testing servers will automatically test the whole codebase, including your changes, for multiple versions of Python on both Windows and Linux.

Pull Request Guidelines

If you need some code review or feedback while you’re developing the code, just make a pull request.

For merging, you should:

  1. Include passing tests for your changes

  2. Update/add documentation if relevant

  3. Add a note to CHANGELOG.rst about the changes

  4. Add yourself to AUTHORS.rst and .zenodo.json with your ORCiD

Style Guidelines

In general, apexpy follows PEP8 and numpydoc guidelines. PyTest is used to run the unit and integration tests, flake8 checks for style, and sphinx-build performs documentation tests. However, there are certain additional style elements that have been settled on to ensure the project maintains a consistent coding style:

  • Line breaks should occur before a binary operator (ignoring flake8 W503)

  • Preferably break long lines on open parentheses instead of using backslashes

  • Use no more than 80 characters per line

  • Several dependent packages have common nicknames, including:

    • import datetime as dt

    • import numpy as np

  • Provide tests with informative failure statements and descriptive, one-line docstrings.

apexpy is working on modernizing its code style to adhere to these guidelines.