====================
  SVN Commit Rules
====================

This is the first file you should be reading after you get your SVN account.
We'll assume you're basically familiar with SVN, but feel free to post
your questions on the mailing list. Please have a look at
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/ for more detailed information on SVN.

PHP is developed through the efforts of a large number of people.
Collaboration is a Good Thing(tm), and SVN lets us do this. Thus, following
some basic rules with regards to SVN usage will::

   a. Make everybody happier, especially those responsible for maintaining
      the SVN itself.

   b. Keep the changes consistently well documented and easily trackable.

   c. Prevent some of those 'Oops' moments.

   d. Increase the general level of good will on planet Earth.

Having said that, here are the organizational rules::

   1. Respect other people working on the project.

   2. Discuss any significant changes on the list before committing and get
      confirmation from the release manager for the given branch.

   3. Look at EXTENSIONS file to see who is the primary maintainer of
      the code you want to contribute to.

   4. If you "strongly disagree" about something another person did, don't
      start fighting publicly - take it up in private email.

   5. If you don't know how to do something, ask first!

   6. Test your changes before committing them. We mean it. Really.
      To do so use "make test".

   7. For development use the --enable-maintainer-zts switch to ensure your
      code handles TSRM correctly and doesn't break for those who need that.

Currently we have the following branches in use::

  trunk             The active development branch. 

  branches/PHP_5_4  Is used to release the PHP 5.4.x series. In release
                    process, only bugfixes and very small changes approved
                    by RMs are allowed.

  branches/PHP_5_3  Is used to release the PHP 5.3.x series. This is current 
                    stable version and is open for bugfixes and small
                    improvements (check with RMs if in doubt).

  branches/PHP_5_2  Is used to release the PHP 5.2.x series. It is closed for 
                    changes now.

  branches/PHP_5_1  This branch is closed.

  branches/PHP_4_4  This branch is closed.

The next few rules are more of a technical nature::

   1. All changes should first go to trunk and then get merged from trunk
      (aka MFH'ed) to all other relevant branches.

   2. DO NOT TOUCH ChangeLog! It is automagically updated from the commit
      messages every day. Woe be to those who attempt to mess with it.

   3. All news updates intended for public viewing, such as new features,
      bug fixes, improvements, etc., should go into the NEWS file of the
      *first* to be released version with the given change. In other words
      any NEWS file change only needs to done in one branch.

      NB! Lines, starting with @ will go automagically into NEWS file, but
      this is NOT recommended, though. Please, add news entries directly to
      NEWS file and don't forget to keep them adjusted and sorted.

   4. Do not commit multiple file and dump all messages in one commit. If you
      modified several unrelated files, commit each group separately and
      provide a nice commit message for each one. See example below.

   5. Do write your commit message in such a way that it makes sense even
      without the corresponding diff. One should be able to look at it, and
      immediately know what was modified. Definitely include the function name
      in the message as shown below.

   6. In your commit messages, keep each line shorter than 80 characters. And
      try to align your lines vertically, if they wrap. It looks bad otherwise.

   7. If you modified a function that is callable from PHP, prepend PHP to
      the function name as shown below.


The format of the commit messages is pretty simple.

Use a - to start a new item in your commit message.

If a line begins with #, it is taken to be a comment and will not appear
in the ChangeLog. Everything else goes into the ChangeLog.

It is important to note that if your comment or news logline spans multiple
lines, you have to put # at the beginning of **every** such line.

Example. Say you modified two files, datetime.c and string.c. In datetime.c you
added a new format option for the date() function, and in string.c you fixed a
memory leak in php_trim(). Don't commit both of these at once. Commit them
separately and try to make sure your commit messages look something like the
following.

For datetime.c::

  - Added new 'K' format modifier to date() for printing out number of days
    until New Year's Eve.

For string.c::

  - Fixed a memory leak in php_trim() resulting from improper use of zval_dtor().
  #- Man, that thing was leaking all over the place!

The # lines will be omitted from the ChangeLog automagically.

Use the [DOC] tag in your log message whenever you feel that your changes
imply a documentation modification. The php-doc team will automatically
get notified about your commit through the php-doc mailing list.

If you fix some bugs, you should note the bug ID numbers in your
commit message. Bug ID should be prefixed by "#" for easier access to
bug report when developers are browsing CVS via LXR or Bonsai.

Example::

  Fixed bug #14016 (pgsql notice handler double free crash bug.)

If you don't see your messages in ChangeLog right away, don't worry!
These files are updated once a day, so your stuff will not show up until
somewhat later.

When you change the NEWS file for a bug fix, then please keep the bugs
sorted in decreasing order under the fixed version.

You can use LXR (http://lxr.php.net/) and Bonsai (http://bonsai.php.net/)
to look at PHP SVN repository in various ways.

To receive daily updates to ChangeLog and NEWS, send an empty message to
php-cvs-daily-subscribe@lists.php.net.

Happy hacking,

PHP Team
