notepad-plus-plus/CONTRIBUTING.md

#Contributing

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

##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.
5. Only bug-fix and feature request will be accepted. For the other things, I can run static code analysis tool myself.

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:

  if ()
  {
      // Do something
  }

BAD:

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:

  if (10 == a && 42 == b)

BAD:

if (a==10&&b==42)

GOOD:

for (int i = 0; i != 10; ++i)

BAD:

for(int i=0;i<10;++i)

• Keywords are not function calls. Function names are not separated from the first parenthesis:

GOOD:

    foo();
    myObject.foo(24);

BAD:

    foo ();

• Keywords are separated from the first parenthesis by one space :

GOOD:

    if (true)
    while (true)

BAD:

    if(myCondition)

• Use the following indenting for "switch" statements

  switch (test)
  {
      case 1:
	  {
	      // Do something
	      break;
	  }
	  default:
	      // Do something else
  } // No semi-colon here

• Avoid magic numbers

BAD:

  while (lifeTheUniverseAndEverything != 42)
      lifeTheUniverseAndEverything =  buildMorePowerfulComputerForTheAnswer();

GOOD:

  if (foo < I_CAN_PUSH_ON_THE_RED_BUTTON)
      startThermoNuclearWar();

• Prefer enums for integer constants

####NAMING CONVENTIONS

• Classes (camel case) :

GOOD:

  class IAmAClass
  {};

BAD:

  class iAmClass
  {};
  class I_am_class
  {};

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

GOOD:

  void myMethod(uint myVeryLongParameter);

• member variables Any member variable name of class/struct should be preceded by an underscore

  public:
      int _publicAttribute;
  private:
      int _pPrivateAttribute;
      float _pAccount;

• Always prefer a variable name that describes what the variable is used for

GOOD:

  if (hours < 24 && minutes < 60 && seconds < 60)

BAD:

  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 :

      ++i

to

      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.