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Contributing to Database Preservation Toolkit

Please take a moment to review this document in order to make the contribution process easy and effective for everyone involved.

Following these guidelines helps to communicate that you respect the time of the developers managing and developing this open source project. In return, they should reciprocate that respect in addressing your issue or assessing patches and features.

Using the issue tracker

The issue tracker is the preferred channel for bug reports, features requests and submitting pull requests, but please respect the following restrictions:

  • Please do not use the issue tracker for personal support requests and commercial support, for those you should contact KEEP SOLUTIONS.

  • Please do not derail or troll issues. Keep the discussion on topic and respect the opinions of others.

Bug reports

A bug is a demonstrable problem that is caused by the code in the repository. Good bug reports are extremely helpful - thank you!

Guidelines for bug reports:

  1. Use the most recent version of DBPTK (and also use it to re-create any SIARD files you might be using). Most releases are not backwards compatible with files created by previous versions. Using the most recent version of DBPTK to create SIARD files may be enough to solve the problem.

  2. Use the GitHub issue search — check if the issue has already been reported.

  3. Check if the issue has been fixed — try to reproduce it using the latest release, or if you are a developer, try the master or branch in the repository.

  4. Isolate the problem — try to create a minimal example that is just enough to reproduce the issue. If possible, attach the example files to the issue, otherwise a description of the steps taken may suffice.

  5. Attach the dbptk-app.log.txt file — the log file is located in the directory where the command java -jar dbptk-app-(version).jar was executed from. If the log file contains private information (it registers the database structure, along with other detailed information, but excludes database usernames and passwords), include the part relevant to the issue: starting with the same ERROR displayed in the program output up to the program termination (marked by DEBUG messages containing a lot of # characters and the FINISH-ID code).

A good bug report shouldn't leave others needing to chase you up for more information. Please try to be as detailed as possible in your report. What is your environment? What steps will reproduce the issue? In which operating systems do you experience the problem? What would you expect to be the outcome? All these details will help people to fix any potential bugs.

It is advisable to not add tags, milestone or assignee to the issue, as these are managed by the development team.

Feature requests

Feature requests are welcome. But take a moment to find out whether your idea fits with the scope and aims of the project. It's up to you to make a strong case to convince the project's developers of the merits of this feature. Please provide as much detail and context as possible.

Pull requests

Good pull requests - patches, improvements, new features - are a fantastic help. They should remain focused in scope and avoid containing unrelated commits.

Please ask first before embarking on any significant pull request (e.g. implementing features, refactoring code, porting to a different language), otherwise you risk spending a lot of time working on something that the project's developers might not want to merge into the project.

Please adhere to the coding conventions used throughout a project (indentation, accurate comments, etc.) and any other requirements (such as test coverage). Check the Development section of the README for some information on these conventions and recommendations.

Follow this process if you'd like your work considered for inclusion in the project:

  1. Fork the project, clone your fork, and configure the remotes:

    # Clone your fork of the repo into the current directory
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/db-preservation-toolkit.git
# Navigate to the newly cloned directory
cd <repo-name>
# Assign the original repo to a remote called "upstream"
git remote add upstream https://github.com/keeps/db-preservation-toolkit.git

  2. If you cloned a while ago, get the latest changes from upstream:

    git checkout master
git pull upstream master

  3. Create a new topic branch (off the main project development branch) to contain your feature, change, or fix:

    git checkout -b <topic-branch-name>

  4. Commit your changes in logical chunks. Please use descriptive git commit messages to ease the process of reviewing your code and speed up the process of merging it into the main branch. Use Git's interactive rebase feature to tidy up your commits before creating the pull request.

  5. Locally rebase (or merge) the upstream development branch into your topic branch:

    git pull --rebase upstream master

  6. Push your topic branch up to your fork:

    git push origin <topic-branch-name>

  7. Open a Pull Request with a clear title and description.

IMPORTANT: By submitting a patch, you agree to allow the project owner to license your work under the same license as that used by the project.