/CONTRIBUTING.md

# How to Contribute



First of all, thank you for wanting to contribute to FakeItEasy! We really appreciate all the awesome support we get from our community. We want to keep it as easy as possible for you to contribute changes that make FakeItEasy better for you. There are a few guidelines that we need contributors to follow so that we can all work together happily.



## Preparation



Before starting work on a functional change, i.e. a new feature, a change to an existing feature or a bug, please ensure an [issue](https://github.com/FakeItEasy/FakeItEasy/issues) has been raised. Indicate your intention to work on the issue by writing a comment against it. This will prevent duplication of effort. If the change is non-trivial, it's usually best to propose a design in the issue comments.



It is not necessary to raise an issue for non-functional changes, e.g. refactoring, adding tests, reformatting code, documentation, updating packages, etc.



The coordinators will usually assign a priority to each issue from 1 (highest) to 3 (lowest) using the P1, P2 and P3 labels. Feel free to work on any issue you like but bear in mind that the higher the priority of an issue, the earlier the coordinators will direct attention to any comments or pull requests relating to it.



## Tests



All features should be described by [MSpec](https://github.com/machine/machine.specifications) feature tests in the `FakeItEasy.Specs` project.



There should also be a high level of unit test coverage. Our target is 95% unit test coverage (the actual coverage is 93% at the time of writing). Any new code that is added should have a similar level of coverage.



When writing unit tests, use the 3A's pattern (Arrange, Act, Assert) with comments indicating each part.

New or changed tests should use [FluentAssertions](https://github.com/dennisdoomen/fluentassertions) for the assertion phase.

E.g.



    // Arrange

    var dummy = A.Fake<IFoo>();

    A.CallTo(() => this.fakeCreator.CreateDummy<IFoo>()).Returns(dummy);



    // Act

    var result = A.Dummy<IFoo>();



    // Assert

    result.Should().BeSameAs(dummy));



Whenever FluentAssertions are introduced into a test file, all tests in the file should be converted to use FluentAssertions.



## Spaces not Tabs



Pull requests containing tabs will not be accepted. Make sure you set your editor to replace tabs with spaces. Indents for all file types should be 4 characters wide with the exception of Ruby (rakefile.rb) which should have indents 2 characters wide.



## Line Endings



The repository is configured to preserve line endings both on checkout and commit (the equivalent of `autocrlf` set to `false`). This means *you* are responsible for line endings. We recommend that you configure your diff viewer so that it does not ignore line endings. Any [wall of pink](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/YoureJustAnotherCarriageReturnLineFeedInTheWall.aspx) pull requests will not be accepted.



## Line Width



Try to keep lines of code no longer than 160 characters wide. This isn't a strict rule. Occasionally a line of code can be more readable if allowed to spill over slightly. A good way to remember this rule is to use the 'Column Guides' feature of the [Productivity Power Tools 2012](http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/3a96a4dc-ba9c-4589-92c5-640e07332afd) extension for Visual Studio.



## Coding Style



Try to keep your coding style in line with the existing code. It might not exactly match your preferred style but it's better to keep things consistent. StyleCop compliance is enforced through analysis on each build and the treatment of warnings as errors. Any StyleCop settings changes or suppressions must be clearly justified.



## Code Analysis



Try and avoid introducing new code analysis warnings. Currently the codebase has quite a few warnings, which we would like to address, and we would like to avoid the addition of new warnings. Any code analysis rule changes or suppressions must be clearly justified.



## Resharper Artifacts



Please do not add Resharper suppressions to code using comments. You may tweak your local Resharper settings but do not commit these to the repo. A definitive Resharper settings file is in the pipeline.



## Making Changes



1. [Fork](http://help.github.com/forking/) the  [FakeItEasy repository](https://github.com/FakeItEasy/FakeItEasy/) on GitHub

1. Clone your fork locally

1. Configure the upstream repo (`git remote add upstream git://github.com/FakeItEasy/FakeItEasy.git`)

1. Create a local branch (`git checkout -b myBranch`)

1. Work on your feature

1. Rebase if required (see below)

1. Run code analysis on the solution to ensure you have not introduced any violations

1. Execute rake to ensure the build succeeds (see ['How to build'](https://github.com/FakeItEasy/FakeItEasy/blob/master/how_to_build.md "How to build"))  

1. Push the branch up to GitHub (`git push origin myBranch`)

1. Send a [pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests) on GitHub



You should **never** work on a clone of master and you should **never** send a pull request from master - always from a branch. The reasons for this are detailed below.



## Handling Updates from upstream/master



While you're working away in your branch it's quite possible that your upstream/master (most likely the canonical FakeItEasy version) may be updated. If this happens you should:



1. [Stash](http://progit.org/book/ch6-3.html) any un-committed changes you need to

1. `git checkout master`

1. `git pull upstream master`

1. `git checkout myBranch`

1. `git rebase master myBranch`

1. `git push origin master` - (optional) this this makes sure your remote master is up to date

1. if you previously pushed your branch to your origin, you need to force push the rebased branch - `git push origin myBranch -f` 



This ensures that your history is "clean" i.e. you have one branch off from master followed by your changes in a straight line. Failing to do this ends up with several "messy" merges in your history, which we don't want. This is the reason why you should always work in a branch and you should never be working in, or sending pull requests from, master.



If you're working on a long running feature then you may want to do this quite often, rather than run the risk of potential merge issues further down the line.



## Sending a Pull Request



While working on your feature you may well create several branches, which is fine, but before you send a pull request you should ensure that you have rebased back to a single "feature branch". We care about your commits and we care about your feature branch but we don't care about how many or which branches you created while you were working on it :-)



When you're ready to go you should confirm that you are up to date and rebased with upstream/master (see "Handling Updates from upstream/master" above) and then:



1. `git push origin myBranch`

1. Send a descriptive [pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests) on GitHub. Make sure you select `FakeItEasy/FakeItEasy` as the *base repo* and `master` as the *base branch*. Select your fork as the *head repo* and your branch as the *head branch*.

1. If GitHub indicates that the pull request can be merged automatically, check that the pull request has built successfully on our [CI server](http://teamcity.codebetter.com/viewType.html?buildTypeId=bt929) (you can either create an account or login as guest). E.g. if your pull request is number 123, you should see a build labelled '123/merge' on the CI server. If the build has failed (red) then there is a problem with your changes and you'll have to fix it before the pull request can be accepted. You can inspect the build logs on the CI server to see what caused the failure.