Add autobuild script.

[libguestfs.git] / HACKING

diff --git a/HACKING b/HACKING
index a051d8a..1121deb 100644 (file)
--- a/HACKING
+++ b/HACKING
@@ -7,8 +7,8 @@ Adding a new action
 All action functions are generated automatically, so there are only
 two files you need to edit:
 
-(1) src/generator.ml: Add your new action, parameters, description,
-etc. to the big list called 'functions' at the top of this file.
+(1) generator/generator_actions.ml: Add your new action, parameters,
+description, etc. to the big list at the top of this file.
 
 (2) Edit/create a C file in daemon/ subdirectory which implements your
 'do_action' function.  Take a look at one of the numerous examples
@@ -68,20 +68,24 @@ Directories
 appliance/
         The qemu appliance, build scripts and so on.
 
-cat/
-        The virt-cat tool.
-
 capitests/
-        Automated tests of the C API.
+        Automated tests of the C API.  See "Tests" below.
+
+cat/
+        The 'virt-cat', 'virt-filesystems' and 'virt-ls' commands and
+        documentation.
 
 contrib/
         Outside contributions, experimental parts.
 
+csharp/
+        Experimental C# bindings.
+
 daemon/
         The daemon that runs inside the guest and carries out actions.
 
 df/
-        The virt-df tool.
+        'virt-df' command and documentation.
 
 examples/
         The examples.
@@ -89,9 +93,22 @@ examples/
 fish/
         Guestfish (the command-line program / shell)
 
+fuse/
+        FUSE (userspace filesystem) built on top of libguestfs.
+
+generator/
+        The crucially important generator, used to automatically
+        generate large amounts of boilerplate C code for things like
+        RPC and bindings.
+
 haskell/
         Haskell bindings.
 
+hivex/ [removed in 1.0.85]
+       This used to contain the hivex library for reading and
+       writing Windows Registry binary hive files.  This is now
+       available as a separate upstream project.
+
 images/
         Some guest images to test against.  These are gzipped to save
         space.  You have to unzip them before use.
@@ -110,8 +127,17 @@ m4/
 ocaml/
         OCaml bindings.
 
+php/
+        PHP bindings.
+
 po/
-        Translations.
+        Translations of simple gettext strings.  For translations of
+        longer documents, see po-docs/.
+
+po-docs/
+        The build infrastructure and PO files for translations of
+        manpages and POD files.  Eventually this will be combined
+        with the po/ directory, but that is rather complicated.
 
 perl/
         Perl bindings.
@@ -123,18 +149,62 @@ regressions/
         Regression tests.
 
 rescue/
-       The virt-rescue tool.
+        'virt-rescue' command and documentation.
 
 ruby/
         Ruby bindings.
 
+tools/
+        Command line tools written in Perl (virt-resize and more).
+
 src/
         Source code to the C library.
-        Also contains the crucial generator program.
 
 test-tool/
         Interactive qemu/kernel test tool.
 
+Tests
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+You can supply zero or as many tests as you want per API call.
+
+The test environment has 4 block devices:
+  /dev/sda   500MB   General block device for testing.
+  /dev/sdb    50MB   /dev/sdb1 is an ext2 filesystem used for testing
+                     filesystem write operations.
+  /dev/sdc    10MB   Used in a few tests where 2 block devices are needed.
+  /dev/sdd     -     ISO with fixed content (see images/test.iso).
+
+To be able to run the tests in a reasonable amount of time, the
+virtual machine and block devices are reused between tests.  So don't
+try testing kill_subprocess :-x  Between each test we blockdev-setrw,
+umount-all, lvm-remove-all.
+
+Each test starts with an initial scenario, selected using one of the
+'Init*' expressions, described in generator/generator_types.ml.  These
+initialize the disks in a particular way as described.  You should not
+assume anything about the previous contents of other disks that are
+not initialized.
+
+You can add a prerequisite clause to any individual test.  This is a
+run-time check, which, if it fails, causes the test to be skipped.
+Useful if testing a command which might not work on all variations of
+libguestfs builds.  A test that has prerequisite of 'Always' is run
+unconditionally.
+
+In addition, packagers can skip individual tests by setting the
+environment variables: eg:
+
+  SKIP_TEST_<CMD>_<NUM>=1  SKIP_TEST_COMMAND_3=1  (skips test #3 of command)
+  SKIP_TEST_<CMD>=1        SKIP_TEST_ZEROFREE=1   (skips all zerofree tests)
+
+and packagers can run only certain tests by setting eg:
+
+  TEST_ONLY="vfs_type zerofree"
+
+See capitests/tests.c for more details of how these environment
+variables work.
+
 Debugging
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------