path: root/docs/developers.rst

.. developers:

RDFLib developers guide
=======================

Introduction
------------

This document describes the process and conventions to follow when
developing RDFLib code.

* Please be as Pythonic as possible (:pep:`8`).
* Code should be formatted using `black <https://github.com/psf/black>`_  and we use Black v23.1.0, with the black config in ``pyproject.toml``.
* Code should also pass `flake8 <https://flake8.pycqa.org/en/latest/>`_ linting
  and `mypy <http://mypy-lang.org/>`_ type checking.
* You must supply tests for new code.
* RDFLib uses `Poetry <https://python-poetry.org/docs/master/>`_ for dependency management and packaging.

If you add a new cool feature, consider also adding an example in ``./examples``

Pull Requests Guidelines
------------------------

Contributions to RDFLib are made through pull requests (PRs).

In general, maintainers will only merge PRs if the following conditions are
met:

* The PR has been sufficiently reviewed.

  Each PR should be reviewed and approved by at least two people other than the
  author of the PR before it is merged and PRs will be processed faster if
  they are easier to review and approve of.

  Reviews are open to everyone, but the weight assigned to any particular
  review is at the discretion of maintainers.

* Changes that have a runtime impact are covered by unit tests.

  There should either be existing tests that cover the changed code and
  behaviour, or the PR should include tests. For more information about what is
  considered adequate testing see the :ref:`Tests section <tests>`.

* Documentation that covers something that changed has been updated.

* Type checks and unit tests that are part of our continuous integration
  workflow pass.

In addition to these conditions, PRs that are easier to review and approve will
be processed quicker. The primary factors that determine this is the scope and
size of a PR. If there are few changes and the scope is limited then there is
less that a reviewer has to understand and less that they can disagree with. It
is thus important to try and split up your changes into multiple independent
PRs if possible. No PR is too small.

For PRs that introduce breaking changes, it is even more critical that they are
limited in size and scope, as they will likely have to be kept up to date with
the ``main`` branch of this project for some time before they are merged.

It is also critical that your PR is understandable both in what it does and why
it does it, and how the change will impact the users of this project, for this
reason it is essential that your PR's description explains the nature of the
PR, what the PR intends to do, why this is desirable, and how this will affect
the users of this project.

Please note that while we would like all PRs to follow the guidelines given
here, we will not reject a PR just because it does not.

.. _tests:

Tests
-----
Any new functionality being added to RDFLib *must* have unit tests and
should have doc tests supplied.

Typically, you should add your functionality and new tests to a branch of
RDFlib and and run all tests locally and see them pass. There are currently
close to 4,000 tests with a few extra expected failures and skipped tests.
We won't allow Pull Requests that break any of the existing tests.

Tests that you add should show how your new feature or bug fix is doing what
you say it is doing: if you remove your enhancement, your new tests should fail!

Finally, please consider adding simple and more complex tests. It's good to see
the basic functionality of your feature tests and then also any tricky bits or
edge cases.

Testing framework
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RDFLib uses the `pytest <https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/>`_ testing framework.

Running tests
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To run RDFLib's test suite with `pytest <https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/>`_:

.. code-block:: console

   $ poetry install
   $ poetry run pytest

Specific tests can be run by file name. For example:

.. code-block:: console

  $ poetry run pytest test/test_graph/test_graph.py

For more extensive tests, including tests for the `berkleydb
<https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/berkeleydb.html>`_
backend, install extra requirements before
executing the tests.

.. code-block:: console

   $ poetry install --all-extras
   $ poetry run pytest

Writing tests
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New tests should be written for `pytest <https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/>`_
instead of for python's built-in `unittest` module as pytest provides advanced
features such as parameterization and more flexibility in writing expected
failure tests than `unittest`.

A primer on how to write tests for pytest can be found `here
<https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/getting-started.html#create-your-first-test>`_.

The existing tests that use `unittest` work well with pytest, but they should
ideally be updated to the pytest test-style when they are touched.

Test should go into the ``test/`` directory, either into an existing test file
with a name that is applicable to the test being written, or into a new test
file with a name that is descriptive of the tests placed in it. Test files
should be named ``test_*.py`` so that `pytest can discover them
<https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/explanation/goodpractices.html#conventions-for-python-test-discovery>`_.

Running static checks
---------------------

Check formatting with `black <https://github.com/psf/black>`_, making sure you use
our black.toml config file:

.. code-block:: bash

    poetry run black .

Check style and conventions with `flake8 <https://flake8.pycqa.org/en/latest/>`_:

.. code-block:: bash

    poetry run flake8 rdflib

We also provide a `flakeheaven <https://pypi.org/project/flakeheaven/>`_
baseline that ignores existing flake8 errors and only reports on newly
introduced flake8 errors:

.. code-block:: bash

    poetry run flakeheaven


Check types with `mypy <http://mypy-lang.org/>`_:

.. code-block:: bash

    poetry run mypy --show-error-context --show-error-codes

pre-commit and pre-commit ci
----------------------------

We have `pre-commit <https://pre-commit.com/>`_ configured with `black
<https://github.com/psf/black>`_ for formatting code.

Some useful commands for using pre-commit:

.. code-block:: bash

    # Install pre-commit.
    pip install --user --upgrade pre-commit

    # Install pre-commit hooks, this will run pre-commit
    # every time you make a git commit.
    pre-commit install

    # Run pre-commit on changed files.
    pre-commit run

    # Run pre-commit on all files.
    pre-commit run --all-files

There is also two tox environments for pre-commit:

.. code-block:: bash

    # run pre-commit on changed files.
    tox -e precommit

    # run pre-commit on all files.
    tox -e precommitall


There is no hard requirement for pull requests to be processed with pre-commit (or the underlying processors), however doing this makes for a less noisy codebase with cleaner history.

We have enabled `https://pre-commit.ci/ <https://pre-commit.ci/>`_ and this can
be used to automatically fix pull requests by commenting ``pre-commit.ci
autofix`` on a pull request.

Using tox
---------------------

RDFLib has a `tox <https://tox.wiki/en/latest/index.html>`_ config file that
makes it easier to run validation on all supported python versions.

.. code-block:: bash

    # Install tox.
    pip install tox

    # List the tox environments that run by default.
    tox -e

    # Run the default environments.
    tox

    # List all tox environments, including ones that don't run by default.
    tox -a

    # Run a specific environment.
    tox -e py37 # default environment with py37
    tox -e py39-extra # extra tests with py39

    # Override the test command.
    # the below command will run `pytest test/test_translate_algebra.py`
    # instead of the default pytest command.
    tox -e py37,py39 -- pytest test/test_translate_algebra.py


``go-task`` and ``Taskfile.yml``
--------------------------------

A ``Taskfile.yml`` is provided for `go-task <https://taskfile.dev/#/>`_ with
various commands that facilitate development.

Instructions for installing go-task can be seen in the `go-task installation
guide <https://taskfile.dev/#/installation>`_.

Some useful commands for working with the task in the taskfile is given below:

.. code-block:: bash

    # List available tasks.
    task -l

    # Configure the environment for development
    task configure

    # Run basic validation
    task validate

    # Build docs
    task docs:build

    # Run live-preview on the docs
    task docs:live-server

    # Run the py310 tox environment
    task tox -- -e py310

The `Taskfile usage documentation <https://taskfile.dev/#/usage>`_ provides
more information on how to work with taskfiles.

Development container
---------------------

To simplify the process of getting a working development environment to develop
rdflib in we provide a `Development Container
<https://devcontainers.github.io/containers.dev/>`_ (*devcontainer*) that is
configured in `Docker Compose <https://docs.docker.com/compose/>`_. This
container can be used directly to run various commands, or it can be used with
`editors that support Development Containers
<https://devcontainers.github.io/containers.dev/supporting>`_.

.. important::
  The devcontainer is intended to run with a
  `rootless docker <https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/rootless/>`_
  daemon so it can edit files owned by the invoking user without
  an invovled configuration process.

  Using a rootless docker daemon also has general security benefits.

To use the development container directly:

.. code-block:: bash

    # Build the devcontainer docker image.
    docker-compose build

    # Configure the system for development.
    docker-compose run --rm run task configure

    # Run the validate task inside the devtools container.
    docker-compose run --rm run task validate

    # Run extensive tests inside the devtools container.
    docker-compose run --rm run task EXTENSIVE=true test

    # To get a shell into the devcontainer docker image.
    docker-compose run --rm run bash

The devcontainer also works with `Podman Compose
<https://github.com/containers/podman-compose>`_.

Details on how to use the development container with `VSCode
<https://code.visualstudio.com/>`_ can found in the `Developing inside a
Container <https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/containers>`_ page. With
the VSCode `development container CLI
<https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/devcontainer-cli>`_ installed the
following command can be used to open the repository inside the development
container:

.. code-block:: bash

    # Inside the repository base directory
    cd ./rdflib/
    
    # Build the development container.
    devcontainer build .

    # Open the code inside the development container.
    devcontainer open .

Writing documentation
---------------------

We use sphinx for generating HTML docs, see :ref:`docs`.

Continuous Integration
----------------------

We used GitHub Actions for CI, see:

  https://github.com/RDFLib/rdflib/actions

If you make a pull-request to RDFLib on GitHub, GitHub Actions will
automatically test your code and we will only merge code passing all tests.

Please do *not* commit tests you know will fail, even if you're just pointing out a bug. If you commit such tests,
flag them as expecting to fail.

Compatibility
-------------

RDFlib 6.0.0 release and later only support Python 3.7 and newer.

RDFLib 5.0.0 maintained compatibility with Python versions 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7.

Releasing
---------

Create a release-preparation pull request with the following changes:

* Updated copyright year in the ``LICENSE`` file.
* Updated copyright year in the ``docs/conf.py`` file.
* Updated main branch version and current version in the ``README.md`` file. The
  main branch version should be the next major version with an ``a0`` suffix to
  indicate it is alpha 0. When releasing 6.3.1, the main branch version in the
  README should be 6.4.0a0.
* Updated version in the ``pyproject.toml`` file.
* Updated ``__date__`` in the ``rdflib/__init__.py`` file.
* Accurate ``CHANGELOG.md`` entry for the release.

Once the PR is merged, switch to the main branch, build the release and upload it to PyPI:

.. code-block:: bash
    
    # Clean up any previous builds
    \rm -vf dist/*

    # Build artifacts
    poetry build

    # Check that the built wheel works correctly:
    pipx run --spec "$(readlink -f dist/rdflib*.whl)" rdfpipe --version

    # Publish to PyPI
    poetry publish
    

Once this is done, create a release tag from `GitHub releases
<https://github.com/RDFLib/rdflib/releases/new>`_. For a release of version
6.3.1 the tag should be ``6.3.1`` (without a "v" prefix), and the release title
should be "RDFLib 6.3.1". The release notes for the latest version be added to
the release description. The artifacts built with ``poetry build`` should be
uploaded to the release as release artifacts.

The resulting release will be available at https://github.com/RDFLib/rdflib/releases/tag/6.3.1

Once this is done announce the release at the following locations:

* Twitter: Just make a tweet from your own account linking to the latest release.
* RDFLib mailing list.
* RDFLib Gitter / matrix.org chat room.

Once this is all done, create another post-release pull request with the following changes:

* Set the just released version in ``docker/latest/requirements.in`` and run
  ``task docker:prepare`` to update the ``docker/latest/requirements.txt`` file.
* Set the version in the ``pyproject.toml`` file to the next minor release with
  a ``a0`` suffix to indicate alpha 0.