gf-core/doc/gf-developers.t2t

GF Developers Guide
Authors: Björn Bringert, Krasimir Angelov and Thomas Hallgren
Last update: %%mtime(%F, %H:%M)

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== Before you start ==

This guide is intended for people who want to contribute to
the development of the GF compiler or the Resource Grammar Library. If
you are a GF user who just wants to download and install GF
(e.g to develop your own grammars), the simpler guide on
[the GF download page ../download/index.html] should be sufficient.

== Setting up your system for building GF ==

To build GF from source you need to install some tools on your
system: the //Haskell Platform//, //Darcs// and the //Haskeline library//.

**On Linux** the best option is to install the tools via the standard
software distribution channels, i.e. by using the //Software Center//
in Ubuntu or the corresponding tool in other popular Linux distributions.
Or, from a Terminal window, the following command should be enough:

- On Ubuntu: ``sudo apt-get install haskell-platform darcs libghc6-haskeline-dev``
- On Fedora: ``sudo yum install haskell-platform darcs ghc-haskeline-devel``


**On Mac OS and Windows**, the tools can be downloaded from their respective
web sites, as described below.

=== The Haskell Platform ===

GF is written in Haskell, so first of all you need
the //Haskell Platform//, version 2010.2.0.0 or later. Downloads
and installation instructions are available from here:

    http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/

Once you have installed the Haskell Platform, open a terminal
(Command Prompt on Windows) and try to execute the following command:
```
$ ghc --version
```
This command should show you which version of GHC you have. If the installation
of the Haskell Platform	 was successful you should see a message like:

```
The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 7.0.4
```

Other required tools included in the Haskell Platform are 
[Cabal http://www.haskell.org/cabal/], 
[Alex http://www.haskell.org/alex/] and
[Happy http://www.haskell.org/happy/].

=== Darcs ===

To get the GF source code, you also need //Darcs//, version 2 or later.  Darcs
is a distributed version control system, see http://darcs.net/ for
more information. There are precompiled packages for many platforms
available at and source code if you want to compile it yourself. Darcs
is also written in Haskell and so you can use GHC to compile it.


=== The haskeline library ===

GF uses //haskeline// to enable command line editing in the GF shell.
This should work automatically on Mac OS and Windows, but on Linux one
extra step is needed to make sure the C libraries required by //haskeline//
are installed.  Here is one way to do this:

- On Ubuntu: ``sudo apt-get install libghc6-haskeline-dev``
- On Fedora: ``sudo yum install ghc-haskeline-devel``


== Getting the source ==

Once you have all tools in place you can get the GF source code. If you
just want to compile and use GF then it is enough to have read-only
access. It is also possible to make changes in the source code but if you
want these changes to be applied back to the main source repository you will
have to send the changes to us.  If you plan to work continuously on
GF then you should consider getting read-write access.

=== Read-only access ===

==== Getting a fresh copy for read-only access ====

Anyone can get the latest development version of GF by running (all on one line):

```
$ darcs get --lazy --set-scripts-executable http://www.grammaticalframework.org/ gf
```

This will create a directory called ``gf`` in the current
directory.


==== Updating your copy ====

To get all new patches from the main repo:
```
$ darcs pull -a
```
This can be done anywhere in your local repository, i.e. in the ``gf``
directory, or any of its subdirectories.
Without ``-a``, you can choose which patches you want to get.


==== Recording local changes ====[record]

Since every copy is a repository, you can have local version control
of your changes.

If you have added files, you first need to tell your local repository to 
keep them under revision control:

```
$ darcs add file1 file2 ...
```

To record changes, use:

```
$ darcs record
```

This creates a patch against the previous version and stores it in your
local repository. You can record any number of changes before
pushing them to the main repo. In fact, you don't have to push them at
all if you want to keep the changes only in your local repo.

If you think there are too many questions about what to record, you
can use the ``-a`` flag to ``record``. Or answer ``a`` to the first
question. Both of these record all the changes you have in your local
repository.


==== Submitting patches ====

If you are using read-only access, send your patches by email to
someone with write-access. First record your changes in your local 
repository, as described above. You can send any number of recorded
patches as one patch bundle. You create the patch bundle with:

```
$ darcs send -o mypatch.patch
$ gzip mypatch.patch
```

(where ``mypatch`` is hopefully replaced by a slightly more
descriptive name). Since some e-mail setups change text attachments
(most likely by changing the newline characters) you need to send
the patch in some compressed format, such as GZIP, BZIP2 or ZIP.

Send it as an e-mail attachment. If you have
sendmail or something equivalent installed, it is possible to send the
patch directly from darcs. If so, replace ``-o mypatch.patch`` with
``--to=EMAIL`` where ``EMAIL`` is the address to send it to.





=== Read-write access ===

If you have a user account on ``www.grammaticalframework.org``, you can
get read-write access over SSH to the GF repository.


==== Getting a fresh copy ====

Get your copy with (all on one line),
replacing ``bringert`` with your own username on ``www.grammaticalframework.org``:

```
$ darcs get --lazy --set-scripts-executable bringert@www.grammaticalframework.org:/usr/local/www/GF/ gf
```

The option ``--lazy`` means that darcs defers downloading all the
history for the repository. This saves space, bandwidth and CPU time,
and most people don't need the full history of all changes in the
past.


==== Updating your copy ====

Get all new patches from the main repo:

```
$ darcs pull -a
```

Without ``-a``, you can choose which patches you want to get.



==== Commit your changes ====

There are two steps to commiting a change to the main repo. First you
have to record the changes that you want to commit
(see [Recording local changes #record] above), then you push them
to the main repo. If you are using ssh-access, all you need to do is:

```
$ darcs push
```

If you use the ``-a`` flag to push, all local patches which are not in
the main repo are pushed.



==== Apply a patch from someone else ====

Use:

```
$ darcs apply < mypatch.patch
```

This applies the patch to your local repository. To commit it to the
main repo, use ``darcs push``.

=== Further information about Darcs ===


For more info about what you can do with darcs, see http://darcs.net/manual/


== Compilation from source ==

The build system of GF is based on //Cabal//, which is part of the
Haskell Platform, so no extra steps are needed to install it. In the simplest
case, all you need to do to compile and install GF, after downloading the
source code as described above, is

```
$ cd gf
$ cabal install
```

This will automatically download any additional Haskell libraries needed to
build GF. If this is the first time you use Cabal, you might need to run
``cabal update`` first, to update the list of available libraries.

If you want more control, the process can also be split up into the usual
//configure//, //build// and //install// steps.

=== Configure ===

During the configuration phase Cabal will check that you have all
necessary tools and libraries needed for GF. The configuration is
started by the command:

```
$ cabal configure
```

If you don't see any error message from the above command then you
have everything that is needed for GF. You can also add the option
``-v`` to see more details about the configuration.

You can use ``cabal configure --help`` to get a list of configuration options.

=== Build ===

The build phase does two things. First it builds the GF compiler from
the Haskell source code and after that it builds the GF Resource Grammar
Library using the already build compiler.  The simplest command is:

```
$ cabal build
```

Again you can add the option ``-v`` if you want to see more details.

Sometimes you just want to work on the GF compiler and don't want to
recompile the resource library after each change. In this case use
this extended command:

```
$ cabal build rgl-none
```

The resource library could also be compiled in two modes: with present
tense only and with all tenses. By default it is compiled with all
tenses. If you want to use the library with only present tense you can
compile it in this special mode with the command:

```
$ cabal build present
```

You could also control which languages you want to be recompiled by
adding the option ``langs=list``. For example the following command
will compile only the English and the Swedish language:

```
$ cabal build langs=Eng,Swe
```

=== Install ===

After you have compiled GF you need to install the executable and libraries
to make the system usable.

```
$ cabal copy
$ cabal register
```

This command installs the GF compiler for a single user, in the standard
place used by Cabal.
On Linux and Mac this could be ``$HOME/.cabal/bin``.
On Mac it could also be ``$HOME/Library/Haskell/bin``.
On Windows this is ``C:\Program Files\Haskell\bin``.

The compiled GF Resource Grammar Library will be installed
under the same prefix, e.g. in
``$HOME/.cabal/share/gf-3.3.3/lib`` on Linux and
in ``C:\Program Files\Haskell\gf-3.3.3\lib`` on Windows.

If you want to install in some other place then use the ``--prefix``
option during the configuration phase.

=== Clean ===

Sometimes you want to clean up the compilation and start again from clean
sources. Use the clean command for this purpose:

```
$ cabal clean
```


%=== SDist ===
%
%You can use the command:
%
%% This does *NOT* include everything that is needed // TH 2012-08-06
%```
%$ cabal sdist
%```
%
%to prepare archive with all source codes needed to compile GF.

== Compilation with make ==

If you feel more comfortable with Makefiles then there is a thin Makefile
wrapper arround Cabal for you. If you just type:
```
$ make
```
the configuration phase will be run automatically if needed and after that
the sources will be compiled. If you don't want to compile the resource library
every time then you can use:
```
$ make gf
```
For installation use:
```
$ make install
```
For cleaning:
```
$ make clean
```
%and to build source distribution archive run:
%```
%$ make sdist
%```

== Running the testsuite ==

**NOTE:** The test suite has not been maintained recently, so expect many
tests to fail.
%% // TH 2012-08-06

GF has testsuite. It is run with the following command:
```
$ cabal test
```
The testsuite architecture for GF is very simple but still very flexible.
GF by itself is an interpreter and could execute commands in batch mode.
This is everything that we need to organize a testsuite. The root of the 
testsuite is the testsuite/ directory. It contains subdirectories which
themself contain GF batch files (with extension .gfs). The above command
searches the subdirectories of the testsuite/ directory for files with extension
.gfs and when it finds one it is executed with the GF interpreter.
The output of the script is stored in file with extension .out and is compared
with the content of the corresponding file with extension .gold, if there is one.
If the contents are identical the command reports that the test was passed successfully.
Otherwise the test had failed.

Every time when you make some changes to GF that have to be tested, instead of
writing the commands by hand in the GF shell, add them to one .gfs file in the testsuite
and run the test. In this way you can use the same test later and we will be sure
that we will not incidentaly break your code later.

If you don't want to run the whole testsuite you can write the path to the subdirectory
in which you are interested. For example:
```
$ cabal test testsuite/compiler
```
will run only the testsuite for the compiler.