8. Development

This section only needs to be read by developers of the pywbem package. People that want to make a fix or develop some extension, and people that want to test the project are also considered developers for the purpose of this section.

8.1. Repository

The repository for pywbem is on GitHub:

https://github.com/pywbem/pywbem

8.2. Setting up the development environment

The development environment is pretty easy to set up.

Besides having a supported operating system with a supported Python version (see Supported environments), it is recommended that you set up a virtual Python environment.

Then, with a virtual Python environment active, clone the Git repo of this project and prepare the development environment with make develop:

$ git clone git@github.com:pywbem/pywbem.git
$ cd pywbem
$ make develop

This will install all prerequisites the package needs to run, as well as all prerequisites that you need for development.

Generally, this project uses Make to do things in the currently active Python environment. The command make help (or just make) displays a list of valid Make targets and a short description of what each target does.

8.3. Building the documentation

The ReadTheDocs (RTD) site is used to publish the documentation for the pywbem package at http://pywbem.readthedocs.io/

This page automatically gets updated whenever the master branch of the Git repo for this package changes.

In order to build the documentation locally from the Git work directory, issue:

$ make builddoc

The top-level document to open with a web browser will be build_doc/html/docs/index.html.

8.4. Testing

To run unit tests in the currently active Python environment, issue one of these example variants of make test:

$ make test                                              # Run all unit tests
$ PYTHONPATH=. py.test testsuite/test_cim_obj.py -s      # Run only this test source file
$ PYTHONPATH=. py.test InitCIMInstanceName -s            # Run only this test class
$ PYTHONPATH=. py.test -k InitCIMInstanceName or Bla -s  # py.test -k expressions are possible

Invoke py.test --help for details on the expression syntax of its -k option.

To run the unit tests and some more commands that verify the project is in good shape in all supported Python environments, use Tox:

$ tox                              # Run all tests on all supported Python versions
$ tox -e py27                      # Run all tests on Python 2.7

8.5. Contributing

Third party contributions to this project are welcome!

In order to contribute, create a Git pull request, considering this:

  • Test is required.
  • Each commit should only contain one “logical” change.
  • A “logical” change should be put into one commit, and not split over multiple commits.
  • Large new features should be split into stages.
  • The commit message should not only summarize what you have done, but explain why the change is useful.
  • The commit message must follow the format explained below.

What comprises a “logical” change is subject to sound judgement. Sometimes, it makes sense to produce a set of commits for a feature (even if not large). For example, a first commit may introduce a (presumably) compatible API change without exploitation of that feature. With only this commit applied, it should be demonstrable that everything is still working as before. The next commit may be the exploitation of the feature in other components.

For further discussion of good and bad practices regarding commits, see: