Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

[Samer Masterson]

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Hey list,

As a new contributor, I have no idea how to run or write tests for 
Emacs, which means I end up testing my patches manually and miss bugs. 
I could try to learn how Emacs uses tests on my own, but it would 
benefit future new contributors if we added a section on testing to 
CONTRIBUTE.

Here is what I would want to see:
 - How to write tests, with a pointer to an internal Emacs package that 
has idiomatic and comprehensive tests.
 - How to run tests on the entire tree and on individual files.
 - A pointer to an info page on the testing framework/pattern that most 
internal Emacs packages use.

Would anyone be interested in working on this? cc'ing Stephen Leake 
because he lead the most recent major changes to CONTRIBUTE.

-samer

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Re: Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

[Samer Masterson]

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I just learned about checkdoc, and it should probably be mentioned too.

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 3:02 AM, Samer Masterson <samer@samertm.com> 
wrote:
> Hey list,
> 
> As a new contributor, I have no idea how to run or write tests for 
> Emacs, which means I end up testing my patches manually and miss 
> bugs. I could try to learn how Emacs uses tests on my own, but it 
> would benefit future new contributors if we added a section on 
> testing to CONTRIBUTE.
> 
> Here is what I would want to see:
>  - How to write tests, with a pointer to an internal Emacs package 
> that has idiomatic and comprehensive tests.
>  - How to run tests on the entire tree and on individual files.
>  - A pointer to an info page on the testing framework/pattern that 
> most internal Emacs packages use.
> 
> Would anyone be interested in working on this? cc'ing Stephen Leake 
> because he lead the most recent major changes to CONTRIBUTE.
> 
> -samer

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Re: Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2015 06:14:20 -0800
> From: Samer Masterson <samer@samertm.com>
> Cc: stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org
> 
> I just learned about checkdoc, and it should probably be mentioned too.

It's mentioned in "Tips for Documentation Strings", to whose parent
node CONTRIBUTE already points.

Re: Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

[Samer Masterson]

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On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 8:47 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>>  Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2015 06:14:20 -0800
>>  From: Samer Masterson <samer@samertm.com>
>>  Cc: stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org
>> 
>>  I just learned about checkdoc, and it should probably be mentioned 
>> too.
> 
> It's mentioned in "Tips for Documentation Strings", to whose parent
> node CONTRIBUTE already points.
I think it would be useful if checkdoc and "Tips for Documentation 
Strings" were mentioned under "Documenting your changes". Assuming 
there are no objections, I can roll that into the testing patch.

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[PATCH] Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

[Samer Masterson]

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The patch below adds testing information to Emacs ("make check", the
"test/automated" directory & make commands)

Best,
Samer Masterson

Patch below:

[PATCH] Add "Test your changes" and doc tips

* CONTRIBUTE (Test your changes.): Add section.
(Document your changes.): Add doc tips.

---
 CONTRIBUTE | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++
 ChangeLog  |  5 +++++
 2 files changed, 25 insertions(+)

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTE b/CONTRIBUTE
index 5cf015f..b9ece74 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTE
+++ b/CONTRIBUTE
@@ -187,6 +187,26 @@ know it does not, mark the NEWS entry with "---".  If you know
 that *all* the necessary documentation updates have been made, mark
 the entry with "+++". Otherwise do not mark it.
 
+Please see (info "(elisp)Documentation Tips") or
+https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Documentation-Tips.html
+for more specific tips on Emacs's doc style. Use `checkdoc' to check
+for documentation errors before submitting a patch.
+
+** Test your changes.
+
+Please test your changes before committing them or sending them to the
+list.
+
+Emacs uses ERT, Emacs Lisp Regression Testing, for testing. See (info
+"(ert)") or https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/ert/
+for more information on writing and running tests.
+
+To run tests on the entire Emacs tree, run "make check" from the
+top-level directory. Most tests are in the directory
+"test/automated". From the "test/automated" directory, run "make
+<filename>" to run the tests for <filename>.el(c). See
+"test/automated/Makefile.in" for more information.
+
 ** Understanding Emacs Internals.
 
 The best way to understand Emacs Internals is to read the code,
diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 4f6523e..f5db1c5 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2015-03-15  Samer Masterson  <samer@samertm.com>
+
+	* CONTRIBUTE (Test your changes.): Add section.
+	(Document your changes.): Add doc tips.
+
 2015-03-02  Robert Pluim  <rpluim@gmail.com>  (tiny change)
 
 	* configure.ac: Error out if with-file-notification=w32 is



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Re: [PATCH] Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2015 00:49:47 -0700
> From: Samer Masterson <samer@samertm.com>
> Cc: stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> The patch below adds testing information to Emacs ("make check", the
> "test/automated" directory & make commands)

Thanks.  This looks good to me, but please leave 2 spaces between
sentences, per the US English conventions we use in our documentation
project-wide.
> +2015-03-15 Samer Masterson <samer@samertm.com>
> +
> + * CONTRIBUTE (Test your changes.): Add section.
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^
Nitpicking: we prefer "New section".

Thanks again for working on tyhis.

Re: Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2015 03:02:26 -0800
> From: Samer Masterson <samer@samertm.com>
> Cc: stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org
> 
> As a new contributor, I have no idea how to run or write tests for Emacs, which
> means I end up testing my patches manually and miss bugs. I could try to learn
> how Emacs uses tests on my own, but it would benefit future new contributors if
> we added a section on testing to CONTRIBUTE.
> 
> Here is what I would want to see:
> - How to write tests, with a pointer to an internal Emacs package that has
> idiomatic and comprehensive tests.
> - How to run tests on the entire tree and on individual files.
> - A pointer to an info page on the testing framework/pattern that most internal
> Emacs packages use.

Most of this is described in ert.info, which I presume you've read.

I agree that CONTRIBUTE should mention that manual (right near the
place that it mentions "Tips" and "GNU Emacs Internals").

Re: Adding testing information to CONTRIBUTE

[Samer Masterson]

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On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 8:41 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> I agree that CONTRIBUTE should mention that manual (right near the
> place that it mentions "Tips" and "GNU Emacs Internals").

Okay, I can write something up and send the patch to the list.

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