faq-contribute

Contents

Autopilot: Contributing

Q. How can I contribute to autopilot?

  • Documentation: We can always use more documentation.
    • if you don’t know how to submit a merge proposal on launchpad, you can write a bug with new documentation and someone will submit a merge proposal for you. They will give you credit for your documentation in the merge proposal.

  • New Features: Check out our existing Blueprints or create some yourself... Then code!

  • Test and Fix: No project is perfect, log some bugs or fix some bugs.

Q. Where can I get help / support?

The developers hang out in the #ubuntu-autopilot IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.

Q. How do I download the code?

Autopilot is using Launchpad and Bazaar for source code hosting. If you’re new to Bazaar, or distributed version control in general, take a look at the Bazaar mini-tutorial first.

Install bzr open a terminal and type:

$ sudo apt-get install bzr

Download the code:

$ bzr branch lp:autopilot

This will create an autopilot directory and place the latest code there. You can also view the autopilot code on the web.

Q. How do I submit the code for a merge proposal?

After making the desired changes to the code or documentation and making sure the tests still run type:

$ bzr commit

Write a quick one line description of the bug that was fixed or the documentation that was written.

Signup for a launchpad account, if you don’t have one. Then using your launchpad id type:

$ bzr push lp:~<launchpad-id>/autopilot/<text about merge here>

Example:

$ bzr push lp:~chris.gagnon/autopilot/bug-fix-lp234567

All new features should have unit and/or functional test to make sure someone doesn’t remove or break your new code with a future commit.

Q. How do I list or run the tests for the autopilot source code?

Running autopilot from the source code root directory (the directory containing the autopilot/ bin/ docs/ debian/ etc. directories) will use the local copy and not the system installed version.

An example from branching to running:

$ bzr branch lp:autopilot ~/src/autopilot/trunk
$ cd ~/src/autopilot/trunk
$ python3 -m autopilot.run list autopilot.tests
Loading tests from: /home/example/src/autopilot/trunk
autopilot.tests.functional.test_ap_apps.ApplicationLaunchTests.test_creating_app_for_non_running_app_fails
autopilot.tests.functional.test_ap_apps.ApplicationLaunchTests.test_creating_app_proxy_for_running_app_not_on_dbus_fails


.. snip ..


autopilot.tests.unit.test_version_utility_fns.VersionFnTests.test_package_version_returns_none_when_running_from_source
255 total tests.

Note

The ‘Loading tests from:’ or ‘Running tests from:’ line will inform you where autopilot is loading the tests from.

To run a specific suite or a single test in a suite, be more specific with the tests path.

For example, running all unit tests:

$ python3 -m autopilot.run run autopilot.tests.unit

For example, running just the ‘InputStackKeyboardTypingTests’ suite:

$ python3 -m autopilot.run run autopilot.tests.functional.test_input_stack.InputStackKeyboardTypingTests

Or running a single test in the ‘test_version_utility_fns’ suite:

$ python3 -m autopilot.run run autopilot.tests.unit.test_version_utility_fns.VersionFnTests.test_package_version_returns_none_when_running_from_source

Q. Which version of Python can Autopilot use?

Autopilot supports Python 3.4.