Branching

In git, "branches" are used to make changes to the code without affecting the main codebase or the work of other developers. Once the changes on a new branch have been tested and reviewed in a "pull request", the new branch is merged into the main codebase.

Getting Started

Note

Before you start writing new code, please create a new issue to describe what you are planning to do, and "assign" the issue to yourself. This lets other developers know what you are working on. See issues

  1. Clone the pydarn repo: 

    git clone git@github.com:SuperDARN/pydarn.git

    It is recommended by GitHub to create a SSH key

  2. Change to the pydarn folder

    cd pydarn

  3. Update the code

    git fetch
git pull origin main

  4. Decide what branch to break off from:

    • HOTFIX: a fix that needs to be in main ASAP then branch from main
    • Documentation: existing main documentation with an update then branch from main
    • New Documentation: documentation that doesn't exist in the main documentation then branch from develop
    • New code/fix that can wait for a release then branch from develop
    • Removing legacy code then branch from develop

    • Code based on another branch then branch from that branch name

      git checkout

  5. Decide on the new branch name. It is recommended to use the following Prefixes:

    • HOTFIX/ : a bug that needs to be fixed ASAP and pushed to main
    • FIX/ : a bug fix that can wait to be released
    • EHN/ : an enhancement or new feature to the develop code
    • DOC/ : new or updating existing documentation

    • DEP/ : deprecating code from the codebase

      git checkout -b

  6. Now you have created your own branch locally. Make the modifications to the code on this branch, and then run the following commands to commit the changes:

    git add <file changed>
git commit -m <brief description of the change>

  7. Now "push" the changes to GitHub:

    git push origin <branch name>

  8. Repeat the above commands above as you work on the code changes

  9. Once you have completed, documented, tested and updated the unit tests then you can create a pull request, see pull request