CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to this project

Using the issue tracker

The issue tracker is the preferred channel for bug reports, features requests and submitting pull requests. Please do not use the issue tracker for personal support requests. Stack Overflow is a better place to get help.

Bug reports

A bug is a demonstrable problem that is caused by the code in the repository. Good bug reports are extremely helpful - thank you!

Guidelines for bug reports:

1. Use the GitHub issue search — check if the issue has already been reported.

2. Check if the issue has been fixed — try to reproduce it using the latest master branch in the repository.

3. Isolate the problem — create a reduced test case or example.

A good bug report shouldn't leave others needing to chase you up for more information. Please try to be as detailed as possible in your report. What is your operating system, FMI version and type, importing tool? What steps will reproduce the issue? What model experiences the problem? What would you expect to be the outcome? All these details will help people to fix any potential bugs.

Example:

Short and descriptive example bug report title

A summary of the issue and the platform/OS environment in which it occurs. If suitable, include the steps required to reproduce the bug.

1. This is the first step
2. This is the second step
3. Further steps, etc.

<url> - a link to the reduced test case

Any other information you want to share that is relevant to the issue being reported. This might include the lines of code that you have identified as causing the bug, and potential solutions (and your opinions on their merits).

Feature requests

Feature requests are welcome. But take a moment to find out whether your idea fits with the scope and aims of the project. It's up to you to make a strong case to convince the project's developers of the merits of this feature. Please provide as much detail and context as possible.

Commit messages

Please follow the seven rules of a great Git commit message when committing your changes:

• Separate subject from body with a blank line
• Limit the subject line to 50 characters
• Capitalize the subject line
• Do not end the subject line with a period
• Use the imperative mood in the subject line
• Wrap the body at 72 characters
• Use the body to explain what and why vs. how

For example:

Summarize changes in around 50 characters or less

More detailed explanatory text, if necessary. Wrap it to about 72
characters or so. In some contexts, the first line is treated as the
subject of the commit and the rest of the text as the body. The
blank line separating the summary from the body is critical (unless
you omit the body entirely); various tools like `log`, `shortlog`
and `rebase` can get confused if you run the two together.

Explain the problem that this commit is solving. Focus on why you
are making this change as opposed to how (the code explains that).
Are there side effects or other unintuitive consequences of this
change? Here's the place to explain them.

Further paragraphs come after blank lines.

 - Bullet points are okay, too

 - Typically a hyphen or asterisk is used for the bullet, preceded
   by a single space, with blank lines in between, but conventions
   vary here

If you use an issue tracker, put references to them at the bottom,
like this:

Resolves: #123
See also: #456, #789

Pull requests

Good pull requests - patches, improvements, new features - are a fantastic help. They should remain focused in scope and avoid containing unrelated commits.

IMPORTANT: All contributors have to sign the Corporate Contributor License Agreement (CCLA). By submitting a patch, you agree to allow the project owner to license your work under the same license as that used by the project.

Please ask first before embarking on any significant pull request (e.g. implementing features, refactoring code, porting to a different language), otherwise you risk spending a lot of time working on something that the project's developers might not want to merge into the project.

Please adhere to the coding conventions used throughout a project (indentation, accurate comments, etc.) and any other requirements (such as test coverage).

Follow this process if you'd like your work considered for inclusion in the project:

1. Fork the project, clone your fork, and configure the remotes:

   # Clone your fork of the repo into the current directory
   git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/<repo-name>
   # Navigate to the newly cloned directory
   cd <repo-name>
   # Assign the original repo to a remote called "upstream"
   git remote add upstream https://github.com/<upstream-owner>/<repo-name>

2. If you cloned a while ago, get the latest changes from upstream:

   git checkout <dev-branch>
   git pull upstream <dev-branch>

3. Create a new topic branch (off the main project development branch) to contain your feature, change, or fix:

   git checkout -b <topic-branch-name>

4. Commit your changes in logical chunks. Please adhere to these git commit message guidelines or your code is unlikely be merged into the main project. Use Git's interactive rebase feature to tidy up your commits before making them public.

5. Locally merge (or rebase) the upstream development branch into your topic branch:

   git pull [--rebase] upstream <dev-branch>

6. Push your topic branch up to your fork:

   git push origin <topic-branch-name>

7. Open a Pull Request with a clear title and description.