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 contribution
25rather than a GitHub Pull Request. If you are not able to submit internally, 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
40    ([see details above](#contributor-license-agreements)).
415.  Fork the desired repo, develop and test your code changes.
426.  Ensure that your code adheres to the existing style in the sample to which
43    you are contributing.
447.  Ensure that your code has an appropriate set of unit tests which all pass.
458.  Submit a pull request.
46
47## The Google Test and Google Mock Communities
48
49The Google Test community exists primarily through the
50[discussion group](http://groups.google.com/group/googletestframework) and the
51GitHub repository. Likewise, the Google Mock community exists primarily through
52their own [discussion group](http://groups.google.com/group/googlemock). You are
53definitely encouraged to contribute to the discussion and you can also help us
54to keep the effectiveness of the group high by following and promoting the
55guidelines listed here.
56
57### Please Be Friendly
58
59Showing courtesy and respect to others is a vital part of the Google culture,
60and we strongly encourage everyone participating in Google Test development to
61join us in accepting nothing less. Of course, being courteous is not the same as
62failing to constructively disagree with each other, but it does mean that we
63should be respectful of each other when enumerating the 42 technical reasons
64that a particular proposal may not be the best choice. There's never a reason to
65be antagonistic or dismissive toward anyone who is sincerely trying to
66contribute to a discussion.
67
68Sure, C++ testing is serious business and all that, but it's also a lot of fun.
69Let's keep it that way. Let's strive to be one of the friendliest communities in
70all of open source.
71
72As always, discuss Google Test in the official GoogleTest discussion group. You
73don't have to actually submit code in order to sign up. Your participation
74itself is a valuable contribution.
75
76## Style
77
78To keep the source consistent, readable, diffable and easy to merge, we use a
79fairly rigid coding style, as defined by the
80[google-styleguide](https://github.com/google/styleguide) project. All patches
81will be expected to conform to the style outlined
82[here](https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html). Use
83[.clang-format](https://github.com/google/googletest/blob/main/.clang-format) to
84check your formatting.
85
86## Requirements for Contributors
87
88If you plan to contribute a patch, you need to build Google Test, Google Mock,
89and their own tests from a git checkout, which has further requirements:
90
91*   [Python](https://www.python.org/) v3.6 or newer (for running some of the
92    tests and re-generating certain source files from templates)
93*   [CMake](https://cmake.org/) v2.8.12 or newer
94
95## Developing Google Test and Google Mock
96
97This section discusses how to make your own changes to the Google Test project.
98
99### Testing Google Test and Google Mock Themselves
100
101To make sure your changes work as intended and don't break existing
102functionality, you'll want to compile and run Google Test and GoogleMock's own
103tests. For that you can use CMake:
104
105```
106mkdir mybuild
107cd mybuild
108cmake -Dgtest_build_tests=ON -Dgmock_build_tests=ON ${GTEST_REPO_DIR}
109```
110
111To choose between building only Google Test or Google Mock, you may modify your
112cmake command to be one of each
113
114```
115cmake -Dgtest_build_tests=ON ${GTEST_DIR} # sets up Google Test tests
116cmake -Dgmock_build_tests=ON ${GMOCK_DIR} # sets up Google Mock tests
117```
118
119Make sure you have Python installed, as some of Google Test's tests are written
120in Python. If the cmake command complains about not being able to find Python
121(`Could NOT find PythonInterp (missing: PYTHON_EXECUTABLE)`), try telling it
122explicitly where your Python executable can be found:
123
124```
125cmake -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=path/to/python ...
126```
127
128Next, you can build Google Test and / or Google Mock and all desired tests. On
129\*nix, this is usually done by
130
131```
132make
133```
134
135To run the tests, do
136
137```
138make test
139```
140
141All tests should pass.
142