Contributing to Idefix

pre-commit framework

Idefix is developed with the help of the pre-commit framework. We use cpplint to validate code style, mostly following the Google standards for C++, and several pre-commit hooks to automatically fix some coding bad practices.

It is recommended (though not mandatory) to install pre-commit by running the following script from the top level of the repo

python3 -m pip install pre-commit
pre-commit install

Then, as one checks in their contribution with git commit, pre-commit hooks may perform changes in situ. One then needs to re-add and enter the git commit command again for the commit to be validated. Note that an important hook that does not perform auto-fixes is cpplint, so contributors need to accomodate for this one by hand.

Note

Note that if for any reason you do not wish, or are unable to install pre-commit in your environment, formatting errors will be caught by our CI after you open a merge-request.

Coding style guidelines

It is recommended to follow Idefix coding style standards whenever you develop your own setup or physics module. These guidelines are mandatory if you intend to share your developements in the Idefix git repository. Note that some of these guidelines will be enforced by the cpplint included in pre-commit (see above).

Tabulation are two spaces
Class definition (.hpp) and implementation (.cpp) should be located in files with the same name as the class. For complex classes, one should have one directory with the class name, which contains at least the header (.hpp) and the class constructor implementation in files corresponding to the class names. One can then add the other class methods in other .cpp/.hpp files in the class directory, naming them after the methods they define. example:
```
| MyComplexClass/
|-- MyComplexClass.cpp
|-- MyComplexClass.hpp
|-- DoSomething.cpp
|-- DoSomethingElse.hpp
```
Make your definitions and declaration as clear as possible (use words, not abbreviations!). Use camel cases if you want to use several word (e.g. mySmartVariable).
Avoid underscore (_) and dash (-) as much as possible.
Class definitions should start with an upper case (e.g. DataBlock).
Method names should start with an upper case. The first word of a method name is a verb (because methods do something). Example: MyClass::ComputeFibonacci.
variable names and class instances should start with lower cases. (e.g. int myVariable).
Macro and preprocessor functions should be all in upper case (e.g. EXPAND)
If global variables//functions are needed, they should be in the namespace idfx::. They follow the rules above for naming.