# Programming for LCDproc

## Get the source

If you want to start programming for LCDproc you will need the have the most current source code available. You can get it several ways:

1. Download yesterday's CVS version of as a tarball (preferred).

2. Download the latest version from CVS.

3. Download the last stable release from Sourceforge. (This is not recommended as stable release may be months behind the current version.)

### Download Yesterday's CVS Version of LCDproc as a Tarball

There are nightly distributions of the CVS branches of LCDproc. You can download them from . For development we recommended to use the 'current' branch.

To extract the files run

    $ tar xvfz lcdproc-CVS-current.tar.gz

### Download The Latest Version of LCDproc from CVS

Of course you can download the latest stuff from CVS via anonymous login. For more information on how to use CVS see About CVS on Sourceforge.

Login to CVS:

    $ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@lcdproc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/lcdproc login

(Hit enter when prompted for a password.)

Get the files from CVS:

    $ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@lcdproc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/lcdproc checkout -P lcdproc

Once you've done that and want to update the downloaded files to the latest stuff you can use the "update" command of CVS (make sure to be in the lcdproc directory!):

    $ cvs update -d

Now that once you have downloaded the files you can prepare them for compiling, but first you should (you don't have to) copy them to another place on your machine.

## Code style guideline

LCDproc has been developed by many contributors over many years. You may find different programming styles (naming, indention, etc) in the source code.

When modifying an existing file, please take a careful look at its style and program continuing that style instead of mixing it up with another one even if it does not comply with the guidelines written below.

For newly added files the following guideline describes how source code should look like.

All new submitted files will be passed through GNU `indent` to enforce the style described below.

### File format and indention

- Language: The programming language used for LCDd (server core), drivers and the lcdproc client is `C`. No other programming language will be accepted.

- File encoding: Files shall either encoded as UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1 and line endings shall be Unix type.

- Line length: Lines of source code should be wrapped at column 100. Comment lines should wrap at column 79.

- Indention: Tab indention shall be used (with tab width set to 8 characters).

- License: LCDproc is released under GNU General Public License version 2 (GPL v2) and every file shall have a standard copyright notice.

### Naming conventions

- Function names: Function names shall be lowercase. We do not use CamelCase (some historical exceptions may exist). Multiple words are separated by underscore.

- Variable names: We do not use Hungarian Notation. CamelCase may be used, but names shall begin with a lowercase letter.

- Constants: Constants shall be written in uppercase using underscore to separate multiple words.

#### Names of constants, variables and functions

    /* Constants */
    #define KEYPAD_AUTOREPEAT_DELAY 500
    #define KEYPAD_AUTOREPEAT_FREQ 15

    /* Variable names */
    MODULE_EXPORT char * api_version = API_VERSION;
    MODULE_EXPORT int stay_in_foreground = 0;
    MODULE_EXPORT int supports_multiple = 1;

    /* Function names */
    void HD44780_position(Driver *drvthis, int x, int y);
    static void uPause(PrivateData *p, int usecs);
    unsigned char HD44780_scankeypad(PrivateData *p);

### Comments

- All code comments shall be `C`-style comments (/* */). Comments spanning multiple lines shall have a star at the beginning of each line.

- `C++`-style comments (//) may be used to comment out single lines of code to disable these lines. Larger blocks of code which shall be disabled should be wrapped within `C`-style comments or using pre-processor directives (#if ... #endif).

  `C++`-style comments should not be used in general.

- We use Doxygen to document our source code. Functions shall be documented using Doxygen-style comments (/** *). See Doxygen Manual for more information and how to use it.

- If you carefully formatted a comment, you may use the special comment /*- */ (comment start is star minus) to prevent automatic reformatting. This usually applies to the standard copyright notice.

  #### Standard copyright notice

      /*-
       * Copyright (C) 2010 Your Name <your_email_address>
       *
       * This file is released under the GNU General Public License.
       * Refer to the COPYING file distributed with this package.
       */

### Statement style

- Function declarations:

  Function declarations have their declaration and opening brace split across two lines.

  Function names start in column one. The return type is placed on the previous line.

  There is no space between the function name and '('.

  #### A function declaration

      /**
       * This is a Doxygen function description.
       *
       * \param y     The number of years
       * \param str   Pointer to a string containing X
       * \return      0 on success; -1 on error
       */
      int
      this_is_a_function(int y, char *str)
      {
      	code
      }

- Operators:

  There shall be a space characters before/after an operator or assignment, except for increment (++) or decrement (--) operators.

  #### Space around operators

      if (p->dispSizes[dispID - 1] == 1 && p->width == 16) {
      	if (x >= 8) {
      		x -= 8;
      		relY = 1;
      	}
      }

      x--;			/* Convert 1-based coords to 0-based */
      y--;

- Function calls:

  There shall be no space between the function call and the opening brace '(' of the parameter list. Within the parameter list a space shall be after each parameter.

  #### Function call

      lib_vbar_static(drvthis, x, y, len, promille, options, p->cellheight, 0);

- Compound statements:

  Opening braces occur on the same line as the statement.

  Else statements: Else statements are placed on a line of their own, even is there is a previous closing brace.

  Opening and closing braces may be omitted on single line compound statements. However, if one part of an if-else-statement requires braces the other part shall have braces as well.

  #### If-else with braces

      if (...) {
      	code
      }
      else {
      	code
      }

  #### If-else with single statements

      if (...)
      	print();
      else
      	err = 1;

  #### Other compound statements

      while (...) {
      	code
      }

      for (a = 0; a < max; a++) {
      	code
      }

      /* case labels are not indented */
      switch (icon) {
      case ICON_BLOCK_FILLED:
      	HD44780_set_char(drvthis, 6, block_filled);
      	break;
      case ICON_HEART_FILLED:
      	HD44780_set_char(drvthis, 0, heart_filled);
      	break;
      case ICON_HEART_OPEN:
      	HD44780_set_char(drvthis, 0, heart_open);
      	break;
      default:
      	return -1;      /* Let the core do other icons */
      }

### Example indent profile

The following example shows an indent profile that checks and corrects the coding style guideline described above. Copy the following text into file `.indent.pro` in your home directory.

#### indent.pro example

    -TPrivateData
    -TDriver

    -l100
    -lc79
    -i8
    -ip8
    -di1
    -cd33
    -ci8
    -cli0
    -ts8

    -ut
    -nsob
    -sc
    -psl
    -npcs
    -lp
    -fc1
    -nbc
    -nce
    -brs
    -br
    -sbi0
    -saw
    -sai
    -saf
    -nprs
    -hnl
    -fca
    -cdw
    -nbfda
    -nbbo
    -ncdb
    -nbad
    -cs

## Submitting code

When you have finished modifying the code you may decide to submit it to the LCDproc project. You usually do this by submitting a patch for review to the mailing list.

To create a patch you need the unmodified files and the files containing your modifications. Usually you do this by storing an unmodified copy of the sources in one directory and another copy with your modifications in another one. You then run `diff` like this:

`diff``-urN` `-X `unmodified-dir`/diff_ignore` ``unmodified-dir`` ``your-source-dir`` > `mymodifications.patch`

Please use unified diff format (`-u` option) only!

When running `diff` using `-X diff_ignore` is strongly recommended. The file `diff_ignore` contains an exclusion list which makes `cvs` ignore all generated files (Makefiles, log files, object files, etc.)

If you have modified files in a source tree you checked out from CVS you can also run `cvs diff` from the working directory:

`cvs diff``-u` > `mymodifications.patch`

Some versions of `cvs diff` will not handle new files because these are unknown to the repository. There are ways to make cvs believe the files existed previously (fake add) but this is not recommended. You will need to submit new files 'as-is' in this case.