notepad-plus-plus/CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contributing

Your pull requests are welcome; however, they may not be accepted for various reasons.




## Before you contribute

All Pull Requests, except for translations and user documentation, need to be
attached to a issue on GitHub. For Pull Requests regarding enhancements and questions,
the issue must first be approved by one of project's administrators before being
merged into the project. An approved issue will have the label `Accepted`. For issues
that have not been accepted, you may request to be assigned to that issue.

Opening a issue beforehand allows the adminstrators and the communitiy to discuss
bugs and enhancements before work begins, preventing wasted effort.




## Guidelines for pull requests:

1. Respect Notepad++ coding style.
2. Make a single change per commit.
3. Make your modification compact - don't reformat source code in your request. It makes code review more difficult.
4. PR of reformatting (changing of ws/TAB, line endings or coding style) of source code won't be accepted. Use issue trackers for your request instead.


In short: The easier the code review is, the better the chance your pull request will get accepted.





##Coding style:

####GENERAL

* Do not use Java-like braces:

GOOD:
```c
  if ()
  {
      // Do something
  }
```
BAD:
  ```c
  if () {
      // Do something
  }
```
* Use tabs instead of whitespaces (we usually set our editors to 4
  whitespaces for 1 tab, but the choice is up to you)


* Always leave one space before and after binary and ternary operators
  Only leave one space after semi-colons in "for" statements.

GOOD:
```c
  if (10 == a && 42 == b)
```
BAD:
  ```c
  if (a==10&&b==42)
```
GOOD:
  ```c
  for (int i = 0; i != 10; ++i)
  ```
BAD:
  ```c
  for(int i=0;i<10;++i)
```
* Keywords are not function calls.
  Function names are not separated from the first parenthesis:

GOOD:
```c
    foo();
    myObject.foo(24);
```
BAD:
```c
    foo ();
```
* Keywords are separated from the first parenthesis by one space :

GOOD:
```c
    if (true)
    while (true)
```
BAD:
```c
    if(myCondition)
```

* Use the following indenting for "switch" statements
```c
  switch (test)
  {
      case 1:
	  {
	      // Do something
	      break;
	  }
	  default:
	      // Do something else
  } // No semi-colon here
```

* Avoid magic numbers

BAD:
```c
  while (lifeTheUniverseAndEverything != 42)
      lifeTheUniverseAndEverything =  buildMorePowerfulComputerForTheAnswer();
```
GOOD:
```c
  if (foo < I_CAN_PUSH_ON_THE_RED_BUTTON)
      startThermoNuclearWar();
```

* Prefer enums for integer constants



####NAMING CONVENTIONS

* Classes (camel case) :

GOOD:
```c
  class IAmAClass
  {};
```
BAD:
```c
  class iAmClass
  {};
  class I_am_class
  {};
```

* methods (camel case + begins with a lower case)
  method parameters (camel case + begins with a lower case)

GOOD:
```c
  void myMethod(uint myVeryLongParameter);
```
* member variables
  Any member variable name of class/struct should be preceded by an underscore
```c
  public:
      int _publicAttribute;
  private:
      int _pPrivateAttribute;
      float _pAccount;
```
	  
* Always prefer a variable name that describes what the variable is used for

GOOD:
```c
  if (hours < 24 && minutes < 60 && seconds < 60)
```
BAD:
```c
  if (a < 24 && b < 60 && c < 60)
```

####COMMENTS

* Use C++ comment line style than c comment style

GOOD:
```
  // Two lines comment
  // Use still C++ comment line style
```
BAD:
```
  /*
  Please don't piss me off with that
  */
```


####BEST PRACTICES

* Prefer this form :
```c
      ++i
```
   to
```c
      i++
```
   (It does not change anything for builtin types but it would bring consistency)


* Avoid using pointers. Prefer references. You might need the variable to
  be assigned a NULL value: in this case the NULL value has semantics and must
  be checked. Wherever possible, use a SmartPtr instead of old-school pointers.

* Avoid using new if you can use automatic variable.

* Don't place any "using namespace" directives in headers

* Compile time is without incidence. Increasing compile time to reduce execution
  time is encouraged.

* Code legibility and length is less important than easy and fast end-user experience.