Setting-Up the Environment¶

Step 1: Git¶

Fork the project on Github and check out your copy locally.

git clone git@github.com:YOURUSERNAME/vastorbit.git
cd vastorbit

Your GitHub repository YOURUSERNAME/vastorbit will be called “origin” in Git. You should also setup VAST/vastorbit as an “upstream” remote.

git remote add upstream git@github.com:VAST/vastorbit.git
git fetch upstream

Configure Git for the first time¶

Make sure git knows your name and email address:

git config --global user.name "John Smith"
git config --global user.email "email@example.com"

Step 2: Branch¶

Create a new branch for the work with a descriptive name:

git checkout -b my-fix-branch

Step 3: Install dependencies¶

Install the Python dependencies for development:

pip3 install -r requirements-dev.txt

Step 4: Get the test suite running (Under development)¶

vastorbit comes with its own test suite in the vastorbit/tests directory. It’s our policy to make sure all tests pass at all times.

We appreciate any and all contributions to the test suite! These tests use a Python module: pytest. You might want to check out the pytest documentation for more details.

You must have access to a VAST DataBase to run the tests. We recommend using a non-production database, because some tests may need the superuser permission to manipulate global settings and potentially break that database. Here’s one way to go about it:

Download docker kitematic: https://kitematic.com/
Spin up a VAST container (e.g. sumitchawla/VAST)

Spin up your VAST DataBase for tests and then config test settings:

Default settings:

host: 'localhost'
port: 5433
user: <current OS login user>
database: <same as the value of user>
password: ''
log_dir: 'vp_test_log'  # all test logs would write to files under this directory
log_level: logging.WARNING

Override with a configuration file called vastorbit/tests/vp_test.conf. This is a file that would be ignored by git. We created an example vastorbit/tests/vp_test.conf.example for your reference.

# edit under [vp_test_config] section
VP_TEST_HOST=10.0.0.2
VP_TEST_PORT=5000
VP_TEST_USER=dbadmin
VP_TEST_DATABASE=vdb1
VP_TEST_PASSWORD=abcdef1234
VP_TEST_LOG_DIR=my_log/year/month/date
VP_TEST_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG

Override again with VP_TEST_* environment variables:

# Set environment variables in linux
export VP_TEST_HOST=10.0.0.2
export VP_TEST_PORT=5000
export VP_TEST_USER=dbadmin
export VP_TEST_DATABASE=vdb1
export VP_TEST_PASSWORD=abcdef1234
export VP_TEST_LOG_DIR=my_log/year/month/date
export VP_TEST_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG

# Delete your environment variables after tests
unset VP_TEST_PASSWORD

Tox is a tool for running those tests in different Python environments. vastorbit includes a tox.ini file that lists all Python versions we test. Tox is installed with the requirements-dev.txt, discussed above.

Edit tox.ini envlist property to list the version(s) of Python you have installed. Then you can run the tox command from any place in the vastorbit source tree. If VP_TEST_LOG_DIR sets to a relative path, it will be in the vastorbit directory no matter where you run the tox command.

Examples of running tests:¶

# Run all tests using tox:
tox

# Run tests on specified python versions with `tox -e ENV,ENV`
tox -e py36,py37

# Run specific tests by filename (e.g.) `test_vDF_combine_join_sort.py`
tox -- vastorbit/tests/VastFrame/test_vDF_combine_join_sort.py

# Run all tests on the python version 3.6:
tox -e py36 -- vastorbit/tests

# Run all tests on the python version 3.7 with verbose result outputs:
tox -e py37 -v -- vastorbit/tests

# Run an individual test on specified python versions.
# e.g.: Run the test `test_vDF_append` under `test_vDF_combine_join_sort.py` on the python versions 3.7 and 3.8
tox -e py37,py38 -- vastorbit/tests/VastFrame/test_vDF_combine_join_sort.py::TestvDFCombineJoinSort::test_vDF_append

The arguments after the – will be substituted everywhere where you specify {posargs} in your test commands of tox.ini, which are sent to pytest. See pytest –help to see all arguments you can specify after the –.

You might also run pytest directly, which will evaluate tests in your current Python environment, rather than across the Python environments/versions that are enumerated in tox.ini.

For more usages about tox, see the Python documentation.

Step 5: Implement your fix or feature¶

At this point, you’re ready to make your changes! Feel free to ask for help; everyone is a beginner at first.

Have a look at an Code Example.

Commits¶

Make some changes on your branch, then stage and commit as often as necessary:

git add .
git commit -m 'Added two more tests for #166'

When writing the commit message, try to describe precisely what the commit does. The commit message should be in lines of 72 chars maximum. Include the issue number #N, if the commit is related to an issue.

Step 6: Push and Rebase¶

You can publish your work on GitHub just by doing:

git push origin my-fix-branch

When you go to your GitHub page, you will notice commits made on your local branch is pushed to the remote repository.

When upstream (VAST/vastorbit) has changed, you should rebase your work. The rebase command creates a linear history by moving your local commits onto the tip of the upstream commits.

You can rebase your branch locally and force-push to your GitHub repository by doing:

git checkout my-fix-branch
git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/master
git push -f origin my-fix-branch

Step 7: Make a Pull Request¶

When you think your work is ready to be pulled into vastorbit, you should create a pull request(PR) at GitHub.

A good pull request means:

a self-explanatory title (and the content of the PR should not go beyond the original title/scope)
commits with one logical change in each
well-formed messages for each commit
documentation and tests, if needed

Go to https://github.com/YOURUSERNAME/vastorbit and make a Pull Request to VAST:master.

Sign the CLA¶

Before we can accept a pull request, we first ask people to sign a Contributor License Agreement (or CLA). We ask this so that we know that contributors have the right to donate the code. You should notice a comment from CLAassistant on your pull request page, follow this comment to sign the CLA electronically.

Review¶

Pull requests are usually reviewed within a few days. If there are comments to address, apply your changes in new commits, rebase your branch and force-push to the same branch, re-run the test suite to ensure tests are still passing. We care about quality, VAST has internal test suites to run as well, so your pull request won’t be merged until all internal tests pass. In order to produce a clean commit history, our maintainers would do squash merging once your PR is approved, which means combining all commits of your PR into a single commit in the master branch.

That’s it! Thank you for your code contribution!

After your pull request is merged, you can safely delete your branch and pull the changes from the upstream repository.