71048002e4
git-svn-id: https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/poi/trunk@960038 13f79535-47bb-0310-9956-ffa450edef68
256 lines
14 KiB
XML
256 lines
14 KiB
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<!--
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====================================================================
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Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
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contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
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this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
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The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
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(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
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the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
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http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
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Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
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distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
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WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
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See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
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limitations under the License.
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====================================================================
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-->
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<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.1//EN" "./dtd/document-v11.dtd">
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<document>
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<header>
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<title>Apache POI - Contribution Guidelines</title>
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<authors>
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<person name="Nick Burch" email="dev@poi.apache.org"/>
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<person name="David Fisher" email="dev@poi.apache.org"/>
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</authors>
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</header>
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<body>
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<section><title>Introduction</title>
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<section><title>Disclaimer</title>
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<p>
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Any information in here that might be perceived as legal information is
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informational only. We're not lawyers, so consult a legal professional
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if needed.
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</p>
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</section>
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<section><title>The Licensing</title>
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<p>
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The POI project is <link href="http://www.opensource.org">OpenSource</link>
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and developed/distributed under the <link
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href="http://www.apache.org/foundation/licence-FAQ.html">
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Apache Software License</link>. Unlike other licenses this license allows
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free open source development; however, it does not require you to release
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your source or use any particular license for your source. If you wish
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to contribute to POI (which you're very welcome and encouraged to do so)
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then you must agree to release the rights of your source to us under this
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license.
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</p>
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</section>
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<section><title>Publicly Available Information on the file formats</title>
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<p>
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In early 2008, Microsoft made a fairly complete set of documentation
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on the binary file formats freely and publicly available. These were
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released under the <link href="http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp">Open
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Specification Promise</link>, which does allow us to use them for
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building open source software under the <link
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href="http://www.apache.org/foundation/licence-FAQ.html">
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Apache Software License</link>.
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</p>
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<p>
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You can download the documentation on Excel, Word, PowerPoint and
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Escher (drawing) from
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<link href="http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx">http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx</link>.
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Documentation on a few of the supporting technologies used in these
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file formats can be downloaded from
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<link href="http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/supportingtechnologies.mspx">http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/supportingtechnologies.mspx</link>.
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</p>
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<p>
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Previously, Microsoft published a book on the Excel 97 file format.
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It can still be of plenty of use, and is handy dead tree form. Pick up
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a copy of "Excel 97 Developer's Kit" from your favourite second hand
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book store.
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</p>
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<p>
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The newer Office Open XML (ooxml) file formats are documented as part
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of the ECMA / ISO standardisation effort for the formats. This
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documentation is quite large, but you can normally find the bit you
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need without too much effort! This can be downloaded from
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<link href="http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm">http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm</link>,
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and is also under the <link href="http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp">OSP</link>.
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</p>
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<p>
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It is also worth checking the documentation and code of the other
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open source implementations of the file formats.
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</p>
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</section>
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<section><title>I just signed an NDA to get a spec from Microsoft and I'd like to contribute</title>
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<p>
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In short, stay away, stay far far away. Implementing these file formats
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in POI is done strictly by using public information. Most of this Public
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Information currently comes from the documentation that Microsoft
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makes freely available (see above). The rest of the public information
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includes sources from other open source projects, books that state the
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purpose intended is for allowing implementation of the file format and
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do not require any non-disclosure agreement and just hard work.
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We are intent on keeping it legal, by contributing patches you agree to
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do the same.
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</p>
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<p>
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If you've ever received information regarding the OLE 2 Compound Document
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Format under any type of exclusionary agreement from Microsoft, or
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received such information from a person bound by such an agreement, you
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cannot participate in this project. Sorry. Well, unless you can persuade
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Microsoft to release you from the terms of the NDA on the grounds that
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most of the information is now publically available. However, if you have
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been party to a Microsoft NDA, you will need to get clearance from Microsoft
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before contributing.
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</p>
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<p>
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Those submitting patches that show insight into the file format may be
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asked to state explicitly that they have only ever read the publicly
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available file format information, and not any received under an NDA
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or similar, and have only made us of the public documentation.
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</p>
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</section>
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</section>
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<section><title>I just want to get involved but don't know where to start</title>
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<ul>
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<li>Read the rest of the website, understand what POI is and what it does,
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the project vision, etc.</li>
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<li>Use POI a bit, look for gaps in the documentation and examples.</li>
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<li>Join the <link href="mailinglists.html">mailing lists</link> and share your knowledge with others.</li>
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<li>Get <link href="subversion.html">Subversion</link> and check out the POI source tree</li>
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<li>Documentation is always the best place to start contributing, maybe you found that if the documentation just told you how to do X then it would make more sense, modify the documentation.</li>
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<li>Contribute examples - if there's something people are often asking about on the <link href="mailinglists.html">user list</link> which isn't covered in the documentation or current examples, try writing an example of this and uploading it as a patch.</li>
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<li>Get used to building POI, you'll be doing it a lot, be one with the build, know its targets, etc.</li>
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<li>Write Unit Tests. Great way to understand POI. Look for classes that aren't tested, or aren't tested on a public/protected method level, start there.</li>
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<li>Download the file format documentation from Microsoft -
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<link href="http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx">OLE2 Binary File Formats</link> or
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<link href="http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm">OOXML XML File Formats</link></li>
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<li>Submit patches (see below) of your contributions, modifications.</li>
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<li>Check the <link href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?product=POI">bug database</link> for simple problem reports, and write a patch to fix the problem</li>
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<li>Review existing patches in the <link href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?product=POI">bug database</link>, and report if they still apply, if they need unit tests atc.</li>
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<li>Add in new features, see <link href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?product=POI">Bug database</link> for suggestions.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>The Nutch project also have a very useful guide on becoming a
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new developer in their project. While it is written for their project,
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a large part of it will apply to POI too. You can read it at
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<link href="http://wiki.apache.org/nutch/Becoming_A_Nutch_Developer">http://wiki.apache.org/nutch/Becoming_A_Nutch_Developer</link>. The
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<link href="http://community.apache.org/">Apache Community Development
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Project</link> also provides guidance and mentoring for new contributors.</p>
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</section>
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<section><title>Submitting Patches</title>
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<p>
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Create patches by getting the latest sources from Subversion.
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Alter or add files as appropriate. Then, from the poi directiory,
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type svn diff > mypatch.patch. This will capture all of your changes
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in a patch file of the appropriate format. However, svn diff won't
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capture any new files you may have added. So, if you've added any
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files, create an archive (tar.bz2 preferred as its the smallest) in a
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path-preserving archive format, relative to your poi directory.
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You'll attach both files in the next step.
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</p>
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<p>
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Ideally, patches should be submitted early and often. This is for
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two key reasons. Firstly, it's much easier to review smaller patches
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than large ones. This means that smaller patches are much more likely
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to be applied to SVN in a timely fashion. Secondly, by sending in your
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patches earlier rather than later, it's much easier to get feedback
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on your coding and direction. If you've missed an easier way to do something,
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or are duplicating some (probably hidden) existing code, or taking things
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in an unusual direction, it's best to get the feedback sooner rather than
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later! As such, when submitting patches to POI, as with other Apache
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Software Foundation projects, do please try to submit early and often, rather
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than "throwing a large patch over the wall" at the end.
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</p>
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<p>
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Patches are submitted via the <link href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?product=POI">Bug Database</link>.
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Create a new bug, set the subject to [PATCH] followed by a brief description. Explain you patch and any special instructions and submit/save it.
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Next, go back to the bug, and create attachements for the patch files you
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created. Be sure to describe not only the files purpose, but its format.
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(Is that ZIP or a tgz or a bz2 or what?).
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</p>
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<p>
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Make sure your patches include the @author tag on any files you've altered
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or created. Make sure you've documented your changes and altered the
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examples/etc to reflect them. Any new additions should have unit tests.
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Lastly, ensure that you've provided approriate javadoc. (see
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<link href="http://poi.apache.org/resolutions/res001.html">Coding
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Standards</link>). Patches that are of low quality may be rejected or
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the contributer may be asked to bring them up to spec.
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</p>
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<p>If you use a unix shell, you may find the following following
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sequence of commands useful for building the files to attach.</p>
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<source>
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# Run this in the root of the checkout, i.e. the directory holding
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# build.xml and poi.pom
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# Build the directory to hold new files
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mkdir /tmp/poi-patch/
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mkdir /tmp/poi-patch/new-files/
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# Get changes to existing files
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svn diff > /tmp/poi-patch/diff.txt
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# Capture any new files, as svn diff won't include them
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# Preserve the path
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svn status | grep "^\?" | awk '{printf "cp --parents %s /tmp/poi-patch/new-files/\n", $2 }' | sh -s
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# tar up the new files
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cd /tmp/poi-patch/new-files/
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tar jcvf ../new-files.tar.bz2
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cd ..
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# Upload these to bugzilla
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echo "Please upload to bugzilla:"
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echo " /tmp/poi-patch/diff.txt"
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echo " /tmp/poi-patch/new-files.tar.bz2"
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</source>
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</section>
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<section><title>Mentoring and Committership</title>
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<p>The POI project will generally offer committership to contributors who send
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in consistently good patches over a period of several months.</p>
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<p>The requirement for "good patches" generally means patches which can be applied
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to SVN with little or no changes. These patches should include unit test, and
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appropriate documentation. Whilst your first patch to POI may require quite a
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bit of work before it can be committed by an existing committer, with any luck
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your later patches will be applied with no / minor tweaks. Please do take note
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of any changes required by your earlier patches, to learn for later ones! If
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in doubt, ask on the <link href="mailinglists.html">dev mailing list</link>.</p>
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<p>The requirement for patches over several months is to ensure that committers
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remain with the project. It's very easy for a good developer to fire off half
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a dozen good patches in the couple of weeks that they're working on a POI
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powered project. However, if that developer then moves away, and stops
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contributing to POI after that spurt, then they're not a good candidate for
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committership. As such, we generally require people to stay around for a while,
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submitting patches and helping on the mailing list before considering them
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for committership.</p>
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<p>Where possible, patches should be submitted early and often. For more details
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on this, please see the "Submitting Patches" section above.</p>
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<p>Where possible, the existing developers will try to help and mentor new
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contributors. However, everyone involved in POI is a volunteer, and it may
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happen that your first few patches come in at a time when all the committers
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are very busy. Do please have patience, and remember to use the
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<link href="mailinglists.html">dev mailing list</link> so that other
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contributors can assist you!</p>
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<p>For more information on getting started at Apache, mentoring, and local
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Apache Committers near you who can offer advice, please see the
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<link href="http://community.apache.org/">Apache Community Development
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Project</link> website.</p>
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</section>
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</body>
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<footer>
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<legal>
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Copyright (c) @year@ The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.
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</legal>
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</footer>
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</document>
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