Re: How to submit contributions?

[Mike Miller]

Hi Christoph,

On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 16:05:30 +0200, Christoph Dalitz wrote:
> Dear octave pundits,
>
> for a research project, I have recently implemented versions of "deconvwnr"
> (Wiener deconvolution) and "deconvlucy" (Richardson-Lucy deconvolution) in 
> Octave,
> which are listed as "missing functions" in octave-forge. I have also 
> implemented
> a recent regularization method for the Richardson-Lucy deconvolution that is
> absent in matlab.
>
> As I would like to submit them, I have some questions:
>
>  a) There is a website for submitting "patches", but there is
>     no information about the form of the "patch".
>     Is there an example somewhere how to convert an octave *.m file
>     implementing a new function into a suitable "patch"?

The ideal submission would be in the form of an exported Mercurial
changeset. Since these functions will likely be part of the image
package, you would clone the image package source repository, make
sure the functions have not been implemented yet, add them and commit
them to your clone, and submit the changeset to the patch tracker.

The Octave manual and wiki both have some things to say about working
with Mercurial (which also applies to most Octave Forge packages):

  
https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Basics-of-Generating-a-Changeset.html
  http://wiki.octave.org/Mercurial

If the above makes no sense to you, you can always just submit the
m-files as-is to the patch tracker.

>  b) Where can I find general style information, like how to
>     document the functionality and the author date of last change
>     in the submission?

There is no need to document changes in an m-file, our version control
system does that for us.

The Octave manual has some information about coding and documentation style:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Tips-and-Standards.html
  
https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Contributing-Guidelines.html

Furthermore, you can get feedback from reviewers on the patch tracker
once you submit your files.

>  c) Do you only accept functions that reproduce matlab functonality,
>     or are other functions also welcome?
>     Is strict matlab compatibility a requirement, or may the interface
>     (and maybe the functionality) be slightly different?

Each Octave Forge package is maintained relatively independently, so
that would be a question primarily for the package maintainer. But in
general, functions which may be generally useful to a wide audience,
fit with the rest of the package, and do not conflict with other
functions are acceptable even if there is no Matlab equivalent.

If you are providing something that does have a Matlab equivalent,
compatibility is desirable.

Hope that helps,

-- 
mike