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1# How to become a contributor and submit your own code
2
3## Contributor License Agreements
4
5We'd love to accept your patches! Before we can take them, we have to jump a
6couple of legal hurdles.
7
8Please fill out either the individual or corporate Contributor License Agreement
9(CLA).
10
11*   If you are an individual writing original source code and you're sure you
12    own the intellectual property, then you'll need to sign an
13    [individual CLA](https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/individual).
14*   If you work for a company that wants to allow you to contribute your work,
15    then you'll need to sign a
16    [corporate CLA](https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/corporate).
17
18Follow either of the two links above to access the appropriate CLA and
19instructions for how to sign and return it. Once we receive it, we'll be able to
20accept your pull requests.
21
22## Are you a Googler?
23
24If you are a Googler, please make an attempt to submit an internal change rather
25than a GitHub Pull Request. If you are not able to submit an internal change a
26PR is acceptable as an alternative.
27
28## Contributing A Patch
29
301.  Submit an issue describing your proposed change to the
31    [issue tracker](https://github.com/google/googletest/issues).
322.  Please don't mix more than one logical change per submittal, because it
33    makes the history hard to follow. If you want to make a change that doesn't
34    have a corresponding issue in the issue tracker, please create one.
353.  Also, coordinate with team members that are listed on the issue in question.
36    This ensures that work isn't being duplicated and communicating your plan
37    early also generally leads to better patches.
384.  If your proposed change is accepted, and you haven't already done so, sign a
39    Contributor License Agreement (see details above).
405.  Fork the desired repo, develop and test your code changes.
416.  Ensure that your code adheres to the existing style in the sample to which
42    you are contributing.
437.  Ensure that your code has an appropriate set of unit tests which all pass.
448.  Submit a pull request.
45
46## The Google Test and Google Mock Communities
47
48The Google Test community exists primarily through the
49[discussion group](http://groups.google.com/group/googletestframework) and the
50GitHub repository. Likewise, the Google Mock community exists primarily through
51their own [discussion group](http://groups.google.com/group/googlemock). You are
52definitely encouraged to contribute to the discussion and you can also help us
53to keep the effectiveness of the group high by following and promoting the
54guidelines listed here.
55
56### Please Be Friendly
57
58Showing courtesy and respect to others is a vital part of the Google culture,
59and we strongly encourage everyone participating in Google Test development to
60join us in accepting nothing less. Of course, being courteous is not the same as
61failing to constructively disagree with each other, but it does mean that we
62should be respectful of each other when enumerating the 42 technical reasons
63that a particular proposal may not be the best choice. There's never a reason to
64be antagonistic or dismissive toward anyone who is sincerely trying to
65contribute to a discussion.
66
67Sure, C++ testing is serious business and all that, but it's also a lot of fun.
68Let's keep it that way. Let's strive to be one of the friendliest communities in
69all of open source.
70
71As always, discuss Google Test in the official GoogleTest discussion group. You
72don't have to actually submit code in order to sign up. Your participation
73itself is a valuable contribution.
74
75## Style
76
77To keep the source consistent, readable, diffable and easy to merge, we use a
78fairly rigid coding style, as defined by the
79[google-styleguide](https://github.com/google/styleguide) project. All patches
80will be expected to conform to the style outlined
81[here](https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html). Use
82[.clang-format](https://github.com/google/googletest/blob/master/.clang-format)
83to check your formatting.
84
85## Requirements for Contributors
86
87If you plan to contribute a patch, you need to build Google Test, Google Mock,
88and their own tests from a git checkout, which has further requirements:
89
90*   [Python](https://www.python.org/) v2.3 or newer (for running some of the
91    tests and re-generating certain source files from templates)
92*   [CMake](https://cmake.org/) v2.8.12 or newer
93
94## Developing Google Test and Google Mock
95
96This section discusses how to make your own changes to the Google Test project.
97
98### Testing Google Test and Google Mock Themselves
99
100To make sure your changes work as intended and don't break existing
101functionality, you'll want to compile and run Google Test and GoogleMock's own
102tests. For that you can use CMake:
103
104    mkdir mybuild
105    cd mybuild
106    cmake -Dgtest_build_tests=ON -Dgmock_build_tests=ON ${GTEST_REPO_DIR}
107
108To choose between building only Google Test or Google Mock, you may modify your
109cmake command to be one of each
110
111    cmake -Dgtest_build_tests=ON ${GTEST_DIR} # sets up Google Test tests
112    cmake -Dgmock_build_tests=ON ${GMOCK_DIR} # sets up Google Mock tests
113
114Make sure you have Python installed, as some of Google Test's tests are written
115in Python. If the cmake command complains about not being able to find Python
116(`Could NOT find PythonInterp (missing: PYTHON_EXECUTABLE)`), try telling it
117explicitly where your Python executable can be found:
118
119    cmake -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=path/to/python ...
120
121Next, you can build Google Test and / or Google Mock and all desired tests. On
122\*nix, this is usually done by
123
124    make
125
126To run the tests, do
127
128    make test
129
130All tests should pass.
131